The Blacks and the Greens
by Sera dy Relandrant
Summary: A series of one shots from perspectives of the various Targaryens, Velaryons, Baratheons and associated bastards mentioned in The Rogue Prince and the Princess and the Queen.
1. Rhaenys - The Queen who Never Was

**Rhaenys Targaryen - The Queen who Never Was  
**

* * *

_"Beloved daughter of Lady Jocelyn Baratheon and Prince Aemon Targaryen, faithful wife of Lord Corlys Velaryon, mother and grandmother, the Queen Who Never Was lived fearlessly, and died amidst blood and fire. She was fifty-five years old."_

**\- Archmaester Gyldayn**

* * *

**88 AC, Driftmark  
**

"I'm not a girl," she said, shoulders squared and chin thrust out. "I am flesh made fire." She has fourteen years to his seven-and-thirty and tomorrow her lord father means to make her call him husband.

"Princess," the Lord of the Tides says amiably, "then we shall get along capitally, for I'm a storm with skin." And he gives her a smile for her scowl and in place of flowers, jewels for her bouquet.

Her mother's ashes have lain cold in the crypt for seven years now so it is her father who must come to her on the night before her wedding. She has given the slip to her handmaids and the flowered bower they have made of her chambers. Prince Aemon finds his daughter on the rocks below the castle, perched on her dragon in her riding leathers.

"Corlys Velaryon has laid the treasures of N'Ghai at your feet," he tells her, in amusement, "and you would rather wear those tattered old things?"

"I don't want them," she says. "I don't want him." Across the Blackwater Bay she can see specks of light - ships at sea, lighthouses on the shoals and lanterns in windows. "I could fly across you know," she tells him, "back to King's Landing or to the hills in Dragonstone. Or across the Narrow Sea like Aunt Saera. I could, you know."

"Rhaenys," he says, hoisting himself up Meleys' scaled red flanks to sit beside her. The dragon snorts, a ring of smoke spiraling from her nostrils, but otherwise she does him no harm. "Why must you play the part of the child when you are now a woman grown?" He curls his hand over hers, chaining her to him. "You are my only heir and it is time you were wed."

"I might be queen someday!" she bursts out. They never speak of it, not at court, but only a fool would be unable to read the signs. Her father has not sired a child since her birth, not even on his whores or mistresses, and he is her grandfather's heir. "Why must it be to Corlys Velaryon?" _A prince, _she thinks, _I s__hould be wed to a prince not a sea-dog with a peppering of Valyrian blood in his veins. In the days of the Freehold we were lords and they were stewards. _Her cousin Viserys' face swims up before her when she thinks of her prince, but he is already wed to another cousin - Aemma Arryn.

"And so you should be," her father tells her, "if the world were but a kinder place. You are a woman, Rhaenys, and to claim a crown you will need a strong husband to fight for you when I am gone. Corlys Velaryon is such a man - they do not call him the Sea Snake for nothing." And he reels off the stories he has told her a dozen times and more since her betrothal half-a-year past - of the fabled riches Corlys Velaryon has found or stolen in the east, of the greatest navy in the world that he commands, of his grace and charm and goodness... fairy stories for a child, she thinks angrily, or a fool. Or a woman's soft heart.

"Sea Snakes are well and good in their place," she says stonily when he finishes, "which is crushed beneath a rock. _I_ am a dragonrider."

"Sweet daughter," he says wearily, "so are we all."

In the morning, she goes to the sept in a velvet gown the red-black of thickening blood. In place of Corlys' bouquet of jewels she carries a dragon-rider's whip, the tip of Valyrian steel, and in place of satin slippers, she hikes up her gown so that men might see that she wears spurred boots. There is much jesting and japes made about who will wear the breeches in this marriage - and bawdier ones still of who will do the hard riding in the wedding bed. To this the bride and groom, handclasped at the altar, both smile - the princess sourly, the lord sweetly.

Afterwards the girl's grandmother is heard to remark that Dark Sister should in all justice go to her.

"You were ill-named, granddaughter," she says, when the new couple come to her to take her blessing, "you should have been a Visenya." Princess Rhaenys flushes with pleasure at Queen Alysanne's words but she never hears the ones that do not slip from her lips. _For good. And for ill. _

There is to be no ribald bedding for Prince Aemon's daughter and so when Lord Velaryon comes alone to the bridal chamber, he finds it locked and barred against him. "_I_ will send for _you_ when I have need of heirs," an imperious voice informs him, "then and not before."

When duly informed of his daughter's wilfulness, the Prince of Dragonstone splutters and storms and threatens to break the headstrong maid's door down himself. But Lord Velaryon only says, "By your leave, Your Highness, let the princess and I resolve our difficulties by ourselves."

"Stupid girl," her father grumbles to a cousin, later at the wedding feast, "never looks past her own nose." King Jaehaerys says little and less when his son's perhaps unwise words are brought to him. Queen Alysanne, though she might speak of Dark Sister when she speaks of her favorite granddaughter, never mentions a crown.

And four years later, when Prince Aemon bleeds his life away in a summer flux, it is the Queen that the old King turns to when he must choose again.


	2. Corlys - The Sea Snake

**Corlys Velaryon - The Sea Snake  
**

* * *

_Corlys Velaryon became a lord after his grandsire's death and used his wealth to raise a new seat, High Tide, to replace the damp, cramped castle Driftmark and house the ancient Driftwood Throne—the high seat of the Velaryons, which legend claims was given to them by the Merling King to conclude a pact. So much trade came to flow to and from Driftmark that the towns of Hull and Spicetown sprang up, becoming the chief ports of trade in Blackwater Bay for a time, surpassing even King's Landing._

**\- Maester Yandel  
**

* * *

**92 AC, King's Landing  
**

"They would have given you a crown of steel or a band with colored stones," he tells her, "but wife, I will set the jade crown of the Empress of Leng on your head and the lacquered scepters of the Shadow Lands that are said to bind shades to a man's will. I will give you the harpy's throne that once stood at the heart of Old Ghis, if you will but let me."

"Valyrian steel," she sniffs, "and a band of gold. And it is not the crown that makes the queen."

"Oh Rhaenys," he says, folding her into his arms. For once she does not twist away with a grimace, grief has made her slow and soft. Grief for a father, he knows, and not for a queenship. She has long assumed she would be queen but she has never hungered for it, as some would. "Would you rather be a queen, chained to your throne, or a dragonrider, free to the skies?"

His princess is a beautiful woman but when she weeps, there is nothing beautiful about it. The tears scour her face like sand and she is spent, she lets him carry her to the litter waiting at the foot of the Red Keep and across the city to Rhaenys's Hill. By the light of the full moon, the dragons are frosted white and silver and their roars sound more to him like a song. _What a poet you are become, man, _he thinks and almost laughs at his folly.

Not a young man anymore, he has numbered one-and-forty years, eight winters. Almost an old man. _What would I do with a crown after all? Crowns are for younger men, with fire still in their veins. Mine are clogged with sea-salt. _he thinks. _Why would I have a damned iron chair when I could sit cushioned by the fireside, with children at my feet? _Aemon would understand, he thinks, now that their schemes and plots are as his ashes. _Aemon would want his little girl to be happy. _

Rhaenys slips out of the litter, to Meleys who is waiting for her. "I should fly away," she says, wiping her face on her sleeve. She speaks half to him and half to herself. "I should have flown away before Father ever wed me to you - I threatened I would, but I was a child then."

"Where would you fly off to, my lady?"

"Somewhere they don't know me," she says. "Sothoros, why not? I've always wanted to hunt basilisks on dragonback. Yi Ti for tigerskins and a crown of jade. I can't stay here. I am shamed."

"Why do you think so?" Carefully he approaches her, till he is only a handspan away from her.

"Father was the heir," she says, "and I was his heir. They should have chosen _me_ but Grandfather picked Uncle Baelon over me..."

_And so would I, _he thinks, _a girl of eighteen, as brittle as glass, against a seasoned battle commander, a grown man with sons and grandsons of his own. What possible choice could there be? _He is not the only man who sees sense in the Conciliator's choice, but even now there is a small but vehement faction that holds out for Rhaenys. Among them is Queen Alysanne, it is said that in her wroth with her husband's choice she has not spoken to him in days. _But she will never contest his choice, _he knows. And as many supporters as Rhaenys might have, they will never rise to a number great enough to pose a threat to Baelon. And perhaps that is for the best.

"Perhaps His Grace, who is known to be wise in all things, chose wisely as well this time," he says, cupping her chin. "Perhaps he knew you would never be happy on the Iron Throne."

"I _would_." She draws back slightly and Meleys growls softly in warning. But a dragon is only another beast after all and Corlys stood his ground. "You will want this marriage broken of cours e- why would you want a wife who will give you no heirs and will never wear a crown? It should be easy, we have never bedded."

"Rhaenys, is that what you think?" He pulls her to him and kisses her. "I love you, my silver princess." Her lips are cool and chapped under his, she is not a woman to smear her face and body with sweet-smelling creams and unguents, but she does not push him back. When he opens his mouth to her, she only slides away. But it is a good sign, he thinks. It is a much better sign than he has had in the four years of their marriage.

"I will not bed you," she says. "But I will need a good captain if I am to get my bearings straight on the way to the Basilisk Isles. You can take me."

"I shall be pleased to, my lady," he says gallantly, bowing to her.

"Your Highness," she reminds him, with her old spirit. "I am still a princess of the blood. I will _always_ be a princess." She is still in the lace gown she wore to the ceremony in which the Old King named his heir. Myrish lace and the sheerest Qartheen linen to be sure, but that does not trouble her a bit as she clambers up Meleys' back. He hears it tear - by morning when she comes back to the castle, weary and spent and beaming from ear to ear, she will be in rags a Fleabottom urchin would turn his nose up at. No matter. He will buy her another, just as good. And then another and another.

"And when we come back," she tells him imperiously, "I will have my marriage annulled. Or maybe I will not come back at all."

"As you wish, Your Highness," he tells her mildly. _I think not. _It is not for nothing that he has seen forty-one years and many, many, _many_ more women.

A year and three moons later, their daughter is born on the ship's deck, on the way back to Driftmark. "Blood and sea-salt," Rhaenys says, curled up in her tiger's pelt when the swaddled babe is brought to her. She smiles through her tears and kisses him. "Just like us."


	3. Laena Velaryon - The Pearl of the Tides

**Laena Velaryon - The Pearl of the Tides  
**

* * *

_Grand Maester Runciter was the first to urge His Grace to remarry, even suggesting a suitable choice: the Lady Laena Velaryon, who had just turned twelve.  
_

**\- Archmaester Gyldayn  
**

* * *

**105 AC, Driftmark  
**

"No matter, my pearl," her papa tells her, "I will make you a better match."

"Papa," she says forthrightly, "you don't need to console me. Or mama." At twelve, her septa thinks her too old to still use those childish names for her parents - "they are your _lord father_ and your _lady mother_, not mama and papa as though you are still a milk-swilling infant in the nursery," the dried-up bitch is forever saying. But she turns a deaf ear to the sour, puckered old thing - as she does to anything she does not like to hear.

Her papa rambles on, oblivious to her words. "A fat old man for my pretty little pearl, what was Runciter thinking when he suggested it? The very idea! And he's besotted with that daughter of his, not likely that he would name any of yours his heir. But all for a jumped-up slut..."

"Corlys," her mama says sweetly, "I think its _you_ who need consoling. Men..." she sighs as papa storms to the maester's tower, muttering furiously under his breath. She takes Laena's hand and says, "Has the news upset you, sweetling?"

"No," she says. "I'd never want to be Cousin Viserys' queen. He _is_ old and fat."

"Neither would I," mama says.

"I don't like boys very much," she confesses, "even though Septa Maerinna said I would after I flowered. Old men are worse, even though the kitchen maids are always gossiping about how much they'd rather be yoked to a steady old plodder though a spirited young colt's always best for a ride." She looks at her mother anxiously. "Is there anything wrong with me?"

Sometimes she is almost _sure_ there is. She isn't at all like her other girl cousins - certainly not like Rhaenyra who loves gowns and jewels or the Velaryon, Arryn or Baratheon girls who don't even have their own dragons. They all act like there's something the matter with her and though she doesn't mind, sometimes it hurts when they play and gossip amongst themselves and never invite her to join.

"No, my pearl," her mother says, letting her cuddle on her lap though she is a big girl now - no, not even a big girl, a maiden flowered and how she hates it when anyone calls her that. "You're only twelve and you're just like me. Flesh made fire." And she pinches her nose and says a good ride round the cliffs will make her feel better in no time at all.

Laenor is watching Seasmoke feed when they come back to the rocks. "I hear there's to be a wedding," he tells mama, "Cousin Viserys is going to marry Lady Alicent Hightower."

"You're only the very last person to know," Laena tells her little brother in a superior voice. "_We_ knew it ages ago." She is about to tell him that at first she was to be chosen as the bride when her mother quells her with a look. She's right of course, Laena thinks, Laenor blabs as much as he eats. And he eats a _lot_.

"I want new clothes then," Laenor announces. "If I'm to go to a royal wedding, these shabby old things won't do at all."

"_You_ should have been the girl," Laena says, because her mother is too nice to state the obvious.

"We'll see about new clothes," her mother says cautiously, looping an arm around each of them and steering them towards the castle.

"Clothes are important," Laenor insists. "I want a silver velvet, with dragons embroidered in purple silk and pearls stitched all over it. I know just how it'll look and mama, for you I think yellow-" Rhaenys ruffles his hair fondly but there is a wary look in her eyes.

Laenor is still babbling about new clothes at supper and papa, listening to him with only half an ear and brooding over his wine, never asks a thing until the fruits and cheeses are brought to table. "What's the occasion, my boy?" he asks tolerantly.

"The royal wedding of course!" Laenor says. "We're all to go, aren't we?"

"Hmm." Papa strokes his bushy silver moustache, so soft and thick that Laena still loves running her hands through it just as she did when she was little. "I don't know about that."

Laenor regards him with wide-eyed surprise. "But we must!" he insists. "It-it'd be a slight to the king if we didn't! Wouldn't it, mama?"

But their mother, always so carefully indifferent to the politics of the court, is dipping her strawberries in cream and sugar. Resolutely she ignores them all.

"It was a slight to us," Papa says softly, "when the king cast off your sister for a used-up whore with mud in her veins. Laena should have been Viserys' queen, by all rights - Grand Maester Runciter and all the wise heads at the court thought it best. But no, what did that fat little twat think - as though he _can_ think for all the lard in his blood-" his voice rises and Laena shrinks away nervously from him. She doesn't like it when her papa turns into a pirate, as he does sometimes when he's especially angry.

"Laenor," Mama murmurs, "don't keep your mouth open like a frog waiting for flies. It looks uncouth."

"But mama-" he splutters and turns accusingly to Laena. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because you're a baby," she tells him very primly.

"I am _not_-"

Rhaenys sighs and drags the two out of the hall and towards her solar. "Children, children, don't make a scene," she says, in the sing-song voice she used to tell them stories when they were little.

"His Grace will be wroth," Laenor, who loves the sound of high-flown words and his own voice, says. He tugs on his mother's gown anxiously. "Mama aren't you worried?"

"I never involve myself in state affairs or scandals," she tells them, "I haven't since my poor father died. I leave that to your papa - he has more taste for it than I do." In the solar, she hands out work for the two of them to do - crocheting for Laenor who loves it and whittling for Laena, who at least prefers it to needlework. "I won't have idle hands in my home," their mama is always fond of saying, "do what pleases you, but you must do something useful."

She begins to mull wine for an after-supper snack and when they have finally quietened down she says, "Besides Laenor, I think we'll be too busy now to attend our cousin's wedding. A little bird tells me that we're to have a visitor."

"Is Laena getting married to someone new?"

"I never was married in the first place!"

"Hardly," their mother says, laughing softly. "What ideas you children get into your heads sometimes. No, it's your Cousin Daemon. You two haven't seen him since you were very little, he's like a gadfly that one, always buzzing off from here to there. Laenor won't remember him at all."

"I do," Laena says. _It'd be hard to forget Cousin Daemon,_ she thinks. _It would be very hard indeed. _


	4. Baela the Burnt

**Baela Targaryen - The Burnt  
**

* * *

_So it came to pass that when King Aegon II flew Sunfyre over Dragonmont's smoking peak and made his descent, expecting to make a triumphant entrance into a castle safely in the hands of his own men, with the queen's loyalists slain or captured, up to met him rose Baela Targaryen, Prince Daemon's daughter by the Lady Laena, and fearless as her father._

**\- Archmaester Gyldayn**

* * *

**131 AC, Dragonstone  
**

When still a child, she would ride Moondancer round the cliffs while the Dragonmont smoked. _Fire cannot touch a dragon, _she would say loftily to the septas and ladies-in-waiting who sought to hem her in. Her father would only laugh if they came twittering at him and tell her that she had her mother's fire. Baela had never known her mother, Lady Laena had died in the birthing bed when she was too small to remember. _You are so like her, _her grandmother often said to her but her grandmother was dead, just like father and mother.

They carry her down to the docks in a litter now, and she pushes the curtains past to see the wan sun and the mountain smoking behind the castle. They have taken her wings and they have taken her legs. _It would be a kindness to take the rest of me, _she thinks. _A sweet mercy. _

_The Pure Maid _carries the last of Daemon Targaryen's children back home. Her sister is waiting for them at the harbor, wrapped in a furred mantle. _It must be snowing in the Vale, _Baela remembers but Dragonstone is too far south to have ever seen snow. Little Viserys is the first to leap off his pony and run to her, though Baela doubts if he remembers her at all. Still, the child is starved for affection - a new older sister is something to look forward to, far better than sour, muttering Baela. A pretty new sister.

Rhaena crouches to his level and the boy is all over her, clinging to her as though she is his second mother. She puts a marzipan stick in his hand and when she rises, he clings to her hip, slowing her down as she makes her way to the litter. They have put her on display on a cushioned chair. Thankfully, her veil still shields her.

"Sister?" Her voice is still soft and whispery. The shy voice of the unwanted child.

_My mirror, _Baela thinks bitterly. In place of a tapestry of scars and seared skin, Rhaena's face is smooth. Her beautiful hands brush against the edges of Baela's veil but she jerks sharply away. "Not here," she rasps.

"Your voice..." Rhaena whispers.

"If it's only my voice that scares you," Baela says, "then sweet sister, you're in for a big shock."

At Rhaena's hip, Viserys clamors to ride back with her - Aegon has sent her a dainty chestnut mare to ride back to the castle on and he can ride right next to her, he doesn't want his fat pony, ponies are only for stupid children everyone knows that... "Hush sweetling," Rhaena says, but gently, "I will go in the litter with our sister today. Would you like to come with us?"

Viserys recoils. "No," he says and with a child's honest cruelty he adds, "she scares me."

Baela laughs, the sound as hard as steel against stone. "Do you hear that, Rhaena?" she says, not able to help herself. _Maimed and mad, _she thinks. "I _scare_ him."

Rhaena climbs in with her without a word and draws the curtains around them. They are made of wispy yellow silk, thin enough to let the light in. Rhaena begins to untangle the pins that hold Baela's hair and veil in place. "You could never scare me," she says simply. "You're my mirror, remember_? Mirror, mirror, on the wall who's the fairest one of them all_?"

She remembers. Oh the hours they used to spend, playing with their stepmother's mirrors and laughing at the two bright faces, impossible to tell apart, that looked back at them. "Were we ever so young and foolish?"

"We're still young," Rhaena reminds her, with a little tremble in her voice. The heavy dark veil comes off at last. "Five-and-ten." She looks into Baela's face and somehow it is as though the years and the marks do not exist for her at all - as though she is truly looking into her own face, mirrored back at her.

"Fire cannot touch a dragon," Baela says, jerking back, unable to meet her sister's unflinching gaze. "What a fool I was."

At the feast, their half-brother the new king greets Rhaena with brittle courtesy. "Be welcome, sweet sister," he says and gives her the kiss of peace.

"He's changed," Rhaena murmurs, coming back to sit with Baela at a table a step below the royal dais. The boy king eats not with his family but with his regent and the council of protectors. "Poor little thing, he looks so wan and weary. And Baela who thought to dress him all in black? Surely it is not in mourning for the _Usurper_." The Usurper - that is what they were all brought up to call their stepmother's false brother, King Aegon.

"He looks like one of the Stranger's minions," Baela agrees, lifting her veil an inch to eat. Up, down, back and forth. It makes the food lose all its savor and usually she prefers to eat alone. But today is their last banquet on Dragonstone. Tomorrow they are to sail to King's Landing so that Aegon might claim his new throne. "It's his own doing, he's never stopped wearing black ever since they dragged him out of the dungeons. He says he'll wear black to his crowning as well, and you should have seen what a tizzy _that_ put the council in."

Rhaena laughs softly, covering her mouth with her hand for delicacy. "They circle round him like crows for the kill," she says uneasily. "It's not right. He should sit with us."

"He's a child of eleven with a crown," Baela snaps at her. Rhaena was always the stupid one, even their stepmother said so and blunt as always, to her face. "Do you ever think they will let us sit with him again?"

"Let's go," Rhaena says, slipping her hand into Baela's gloved one. "I feel sick." Thinking no doubt of the time they slipped out of interminable suppers and banquets together, two little girls hand-in-hand.

"I can't," Baela says simply. "I need someone to carry me."

"Oh. Oh."

At night, Rhaena pads from her own room to Baela's and with a flick of her fingers, dismisses the handmaid who tends her twin. Baela lets her pick up the hairbrush the girl was using. It has grown some in the last few months, sparser and more brittle than before it was burnt to be sure, but still the same silver as Rhaena's.

Rhaena combs through it carefully and over the wine and wafers that have been brought to the chamber as an after-supper snack, she begins to prattle. Of old days and new. _No wonder she was forever dashing to the sept to pray. She needed the gods to prattle to when everyone else would clap their hands over their ears when they saw her coming. _Baela lets her and after she is through, she does the same for Rhaena. Where Baela's hair barely scrapes her shoulders now, Rhaena's reaches to her hips. It is slow going but Rhaena does not mind.

"We'll need to call the maid to carry me back to the bed," Baela says practically.

"Don't be a ninny. I'll do it." Rhaena pushes the cushioned stool away from the mirror and table and across the room to the bed. She half-drags, half-carries Baela on to the bed and tucks her in. "That wasn't so hard," she says breathlessly. "I'm not a feckless little fool you know. I _can_ do some things by myself."

"Jace and Luke liked you more than me because you were a feckless ninny," Baela reminds her dryly. "Even though Jace was supposed to be mine. You flirted with him all the same."

Rhaena blows out the candles in the room. "Aren't you a spiteful little cat."

"You would be spiteful too if you had my face."

"That I would," Rhaena agrees, without missing a beat, and slips into the covers besides Baela. She strokes her face tenderly and somehow it feels good to have those soft, smooth hands over her face, even though she hates Rhaena a little. Nobody touches her face anymore, nobody comes near her anymore if they can help it. "But not to you, Bae."

Baela puts her hands over Rhaena's face as well, mapping the pure beauty of the face that used to be her own. "You were always praying, Rhaena. We used to laugh at you behind your back."

"And in my face as well. Our stepmother was forever telling me I was a most tiresome girl."

"What did you pray for?"

Rhaena laughs but it is not a gay laugh, not like her usual laugh at all that makes everyone smile. "Why for my dragon eggs to hatch of course. I was so jealous of you all, when yours hatched but mine died sickly and you all rode dragons while I had to sit and sew and endure my ladies' pitying looks. I felt so worthless, so dreadful-"

"I pray too, now. Just as hard as you ever did."

Rhaena curls her arms tighter around her. "What do you pray for, Bae?"

"Mercy. You can give me mercy." When she is done speaking, her sister still clings to her but her tears are wet and sticky on both their faces.

"Baela, _please_..."

"You're my sister," Baela says fiercely, her nails raking Rhaena's hands and arms. She hopes she rips the skin to shreds, all that smooth, perfect skin... "My twin. My mirror. If not you, then who?"

"Baela I never could! It would be the most terrible sin-" She is mumbling incoherently now, almost choking on her tears and shivering as though from ague. "Oh how can you speak of such things?"

_No matter, _Baela thinks, her fingers clawing at her sister's face now, blood under her nails. _Not so pretty now, are you? _She wants Rhaena to scream.

It is as though another part of her has taken over her, the monster that lived in her dragon and still lives on in her. She feels so detached from the scene though by morning she knows she will be sorry, she will cry over Rhaena's poor face as bitterly as her sister. No wonder Viserys is scared of her - and not just because of how she looks.

_I never expected Rhaena to crack at the first anyway. But she's a weakling, she could never hatch a dragon's egg while I had Moondancer. I'm the strong one, the brave one, just like father said. I'll wear her down like the tides wear out the rock. _


	5. Daemon - The Prince of the City

_Thus did matters stand in King's Landing late in the year 105 AC, when Queen Aemma was brought to bed in Maegor's Holdfast, and died whilst giving birth to the son that Viserys Targaryen had desired for so long. The boy (named Baelon, after the king's father) survived her only by a day, leaving king and court bereft... save perhaps for Prince Daemon, who was observed in a brothel on the Street of Silk, making drunken japes with his highborn cronies about the "heir for a day". When word of this got back to the king (legend says that it was the whore sitting in Daemon's lap who informed on him, but evidence suggests it was actually one of his drinking companions, a captain in the gold cloaks eager for advancement), Viserys became livid. His Grace had finally had a surfeit of this ungrateful brother and his ambitions._

**\- Archmaester Gyldayn**

* * *

**105 AC, King's Landing**

"A toast to His Royal Highness!" the Prince of the City roared, raising his tankard high. "Baelon Targaryen, Heir for a Day!" The white wine of Lys spilled down his doublet and trickled between the breasts of the whore in his lap and the one kneeling at his feet. One was clad in silver chains, the other in gold. They laughed with him, petting and pawing, and his men laughed and cheered as well.

The brat was dead and his mother with him. That was cause enough, more than cause, for Daemon Targaryen to let loose his purse and shower the Street of Silk with gold.

"When I am king," he slurred, licking the wine off the girl's teats, "I'll fuck you on the feather bed she died in. You bring me good luck, eh?" He stroked the golden hair of the girl kneeling at his feet. "I won't forget you either, sweetling. I'll lay you on the little prince's tomb-slab and make you squeal. How'd you like that?"

"Very well, m'lord prince," she breathed, smiling up at him. "I'll scream loud enough to let the poor prince hear, if you want me to."

But he wasn't listening. "Mysaria!" he shouted. The Lysene dancer came slowly down the steps of the bawdhouse he'd bought for her. He'd made a habit of her and since she'd pleased him so well, set her up in her own house. "Come celebrate with me, my queen-to-be!"

"_Misery_," hissed the whore in his lap but he knocked her off, to make a place for his lover. Where all the other women in the room wore only their hair and bits and pieces of metal to cover themselves, Mysaria was dressed as demurely as a septa in a motherhouse.

"You entice me, my love," he murmured, looping his fingers through her tooled leather belt. "Why all this black, my sweet one? Not that it doesn't become you..."

"I am in mourning for the young prince," she said, unsmiling. She resisted his effort to pull her into his lap. "And so should you be, my lord."

His brows knit together but he said lightly, "Really? Do tell."

"His Grace will hear of this," she said gravely, drawing a footstool to sit upon. "He will not like it."

"Visery's in mourning."

"But his Master of Whispers is _not_." She looked at him earnestly. "My prince, you should take yourself back to the castle. Weep by the poor little prince's casket, throw yourself at your brother's feet. Mourn."

"Curse you for a plague of misery," he snapped. "I am king now, or near enough to make no matter."

"No," she said, her voice whisper-soft. "You are not even His Grace's heir. He has still a daughter."

"You disgust me," he snapped, swatting at her. She ducked and rose, face troubled. "I should you left you in the pillowhouse I found you, to dance naked on tables and in men's laps."

"I _was_ a whore, Your Highness," she said, with a dignity that was at odds with her situation. "But in your kindness, you raised me to be your mistress. And for that, I owe you and always will." With a dancer's grace, she made her curtsey to him. "Heed me now, my prince, for the love I bear you. If I were you, I would pack. I fear you have little time left in the city. When dawn breaks over the Red Keep, your brother will summon you."

"I raised her up," he muttered to the girl at his feet, turning his face away from Mysaria. The girl at his feet had busy little hands that lingered pleasantly between his legs. "I could drag her down and put you up in her place." She was pretty enough, but in a common way, like the violets that grazed the dusty roadside. Mysaria was a hothouse orchid. _No damn me, she's too quick and queer to leave, curse the wench for it._

"Another round!" he shouted, "another and another and another! We must toast the Half-day Heir's journey to Hell!" He tugged the girl up, already staggering when he found his feet. "You," he said, pointing to another, "you and you and you." The last was a comely boy, a cupbearer who could be no more than thirteen. He would add spice to the feast. _I don't need the White Worm. I can take my pleasure where I want and when I want. _"A king must celebrate like a king, eh?"


	6. Rhaenyra - The Realm's Delight

_Yet Princess Rhaenyra continued to sit at the foot of the Iron Throne when her father held court, and His Grace began bringing her to meetings of the small council as well. Though many lords and knights sought her favor, the princess had eyes only for Ser Criston Cole, her gallant young sworn shield. "Ser Criston protects the princess from her enemies, but who protects the princess from Ser Criston?" Queen Alicent asked one day at court._

**\- Archmaester Gyldayn**

* * *

**111 AC, King's Landing**

Her lord father had laid his wager on young Strong, her stepmother on a Hightower cousin to who she'd given her favor - a green ribbon, plaited into his stallion's mane. The Hand pinned his hopes on his youngest son, Green Gwayne.

"No need to ask whom my lady princess favors," the queen said, with a smile that cut, "who could it be, save bold Ser Criston?"

"Fortune favors the bold," Rhaenyra replied, not to be outdone. "I will wager my crown against yours, lady mother."

When she had flowered, her father had bestowed her late mother's crown on her, a spiked band of gold set with sapphires to match the blue of Queen Aemma's eyes. Against it, Alicent's crown was a delicate thing of filigreed flowers in rose gold - pretty enough to be coveted, but so light and insubstantial that it seemed a poor thing to grace a queen's brow. Still, Rhaenyra would enjoy the taking of it from her stepmother.

"Done and done."

Her father smiled, pleased at their seeming amiability. He liked things to be sweet and simple. Taking advantage of it, Rhaenyra plucked her half-brother from her stepmother's lap. "Aemond and I shall watch together," she said and cuddled the squalling infant, "shall we not, my lamb?" This was the third brat that had tumbled forth from her stepmother's supple belly, scarcely a year old and forever bawling whenever she touched or held him. In that he was like his siblings - four-year-old Aegon and two-year-old Helaena would always hide behind their nurse's skirts whenever they saw her. The regard was mutual.

"It's good to see you getting along," her father said brightly before Alicent, her smile strained, could intercede.

Rhaenyra kissed the boy's curls, wishing she could drive a nail instead through the soft head._ But Alicent would bear another, _she thought, _there's no stopping a rutting sow. _"I hope someday to have children of my own," she said, "children as sweet and precious as yours, mother."

"Soon," her father promised her. She smiled at him, thinking he was a dear but a fool all the same. He would wed her to his advantage - to some great lord from one side or the other of the Narrow Sea. But someday _she_ would be Queen of the Seven Kingdoms. Her heirs would be of her choosing, not bred upon her body in cold duty. Her eyes strayed to the Kingsguard, waiting in the courtyard.

Men had come sniffing at her heels ever since her true mother's death, but it was only after she had flowered that there had been a different kind of hunger in their eyes. All men save the one she wanted. _Would it spoil the spell if Criston ever looked at me like that? _she thought. He could set her heart racing and her palms sweating with a glance. Sometimes, when he smiled at her, she had to look away lest she betray herself with tears and pleas. _Love me, _she might say, _you are the only one who cared for me since my mother died and my father wed a whore. Hold me close and love me. _When he furrowed his brow in thought, she would have kissed those lines away if she dared.

_A true woman would, _she thought. _Her kisses would make him forget honor and duty. _But she had never kissed a boy or man before and she would not know where to start.

They made their stately progress from Maegor's Holdfast, in covered litters across the city to where the tourney would be held. The Kingsguard excused themselves to prepare in the white silk pavilions that had been erected across the field. Her father, Alicent and the three brats sat in one of the royal boxes and across the field from them, Rhaenyra sat with her cousins and ladies.

She received the homage of the lords and knights who made their way to her. It seemed though that the whispers at today's tourney were unusually loud. She could not make sense of it before an Arryn cousin murmured in her ear that her gown was so strikingly unlike the queen's that men had taken notice. Was this then a token of defiance, of the princess's disdain for the queen? Hitherto they had always dressed in suitably complementary or similar colors.

Of all things to take note of, she thought, dismissing once more the folly of men, they latched on a gown? She held her fan up to her face to cover her mouth. "Perhaps," she said evasively, "I wear the colors of my house. Alicent wears the color of envy."

Merium smiled. "I am sure there would be some who would be interested to hear that," she said. "They would think you had finally come into your own, in wisdom and courage, Your Highness."

The way the words were phrased gave her pause. "Do they say aught else of the heir to the throne?"

With a cousin's freedom, Merium said, "Some do. They say you are but a young girl, feckless and foolish. The queen is a mother and mothers are known to be as fierce as lionesses when their cubs are in danger."

"Sadly her cubs are still infants in the nursery. A wise man would remember that." She nodded to Merium. "Go. Spread the word that the _crown_ princess has come into her own."

Before the tourney began, Criston came to her. His scales were white as milk against the coal of his hair. He was the most gallant knight in a court of gallant men. "I beg the honor of wearing your favor today, Your Highness."

Her mouth was dry and suddenly she felt like a little girl of six again, who had looked up at the knight appointed to be her sworn shield with doubt. He had seemed so stiff and solemn that she had been on edge around him, at first, but then he had brought her a stick and a wheel and showed her how the children of smallfolk could play with it for hours on end. He had bought her ribbons from the markets at King's Landing and secreted sweets for her in between her lessons, when her governesses were busy.

"Her Highness grants it and hopes you will honor it well today," Merium said for her. All she could manage was a nod - perhaps it was regal and dignified, but she wished she could have said the words herself. _Stupid, stupid, stupid, _she berated herself, even as she handed him her handkerchief.

"Wear it close to your heart," she managed, in a feeble squawk. The words should have come with a sultry smile, a flutter of her lashes. Hadn't she seen the court ladies at their business long enough to learn? But no, she had spent too many years learning how to be a queen to learn how to be a woman. _Someone should have appointed a governess for that. _

"Nothing will tear it away, my lady princess."

When he rode away, Merium, who knew where her affections lay, smirked at her. "Oh cousin," she murmured, low enough that none of their ladies could hear, "you are so sweet and virginal. Any man would be delighted to have a daughter like you."

"That's why they call me the Realm's Delight."

Merium flicked her fingers in dismissal. "It sounds like the name they'd give me a brothel whore. Hardly fearsome or regal." She was right at that. A prince who was heir to his father's throne might be called Strongarm or The Sharpspear but what name had the singers saddled her with? Oh yes - the Realm's Delight. It had made her want to gag ever since she was nine.

She had just begun to suck on a sugar cone, from the platter of fruits and sweets that had been laid before them, when Deanna Strong let out a fearsome shriek. "_Really_," Rhaenyra began sharply, determined to maintain order and discipline among her women, when Merium grabbed her arm and pointed to the skies.

"Mercy, it must be a dragon!"

Lower and lower circled the rider and the dragon, its shadow black and ominous against the tourney grounds. "What color is it?" Rhaenyra snapped, raising her voice to be heard above the shouts and screams of the crowd. The smallfolk had smashed against the wooden fences erected around the field, scrabbling like so much vermin. _Fools, if they're to be roasted today they will be. Not much good stamping all over one another, is there? _Sometimes the smallfolk acted quite as though they were without minds of their own.

Most of the lords and knights were on their feet, swords unsheathed. A few ladies had simply swooned. Her father sat quite still, Ser Otto whispering furiously in his ear. White-faced Alicent had grabbed her children from their nurses, Aegon and Aemond in her lap and Helaena clinging to her arm.

Merium squinted hard and finally said, "Red."

The dragon was huge and lean, much larger than Syrax. Its scales were the dusty red of clayey soil, rather than a deep blood-red like Meleys'. "Caraxes," Rhaenyra said.

"How can you tell?" Merium asked, wide-eyed.

In truth, Prince Daemon's dragon had not been seen in these parts for nigh on eight years. Rhaenyra scarcely remembered it at all - and of the man, her uncle, she had only childhood memories. Sweet ones. "I listened in my lessons," she said primly, "rather than make eyes at boys."

She sat with her hands folded in her lap, determined to retain her dignity. "It seems that my uncle has come home." She turned to her ladies and snapped, "Sit down you fools and shut your mouths. The next one I catch squalling like a headless chicken, I'll have whipped. Throw some cold water over that silly girl, she'll come round quicker then. I have no place in my retinue for cravens and fools."

Order returned in her box, she waited to see what would happen. A single dragon and rider were no match for the city. If her uncle killed them all now - his brother, nephews and nieces - he would forever be branded kinslayer. No men would harken to his banner save the cut-throats and pirates he had befriended over the years.

Thrice he circled above the tourney grounds, the gold and silver of his garments glittering fiercely in the sunlight. _He looks like some god, descending from the clouds, _she thought. Better not let that slip before a septon - they all deemed her uncle godless. When at last he came to earth, he vaulted from Caraxes' back in one leap and knelt in the dust before her father's box.

"You were right," Merium whispered in awe. "How grand he looks!" Rhaenyra pinched her sharply to make her quiet.

"Brother," he said in his booming voice, loud enough so that all might hear. "I return to you, a changed man. Where I was haughty before, I am now humble. Where I was wild before, I am now tamed. Where I was ungrateful before, I am now loyal, desiring only to serve my liege lord and royal brother." Alicent's eyebrows had risen as high in her face as they could go, but her father was on his feet.

"I offer you the crown of the Stepstones and the Narrow Sea," he said, opening a velvet box and showing off the contents. "Won by blood and sweat. A token of my love and fealty, to be yours and those of your heirs in perpetuity. Forgive me, brother, and let me serve you once more."

Her father had left his box, shadowed by his shield, Steffon Darklyn. He raised Daemon up and kissed him on both cheeks. "Be welcome back to the fold, brother," he said. He accepted the box and to Rhaenyra's surprise, placed the crown upon Daemon's head. "Love and honor me and let us forget the strife of years gone by. Let us be as brothers once more."

The crowds began to cheer wildly, voices loud as thunder in joy that the sons of Prince Baelon were reunited once more. _How pleasant it would be drive a wedge between Aegon and Aemond and hope they finished one another off. _The thought gave her pause for a moment but it was not to be considered now. The older one could scarce lift a wooden toy sword, the younger one had not gained the full use of his legs. _Something to consider on a rainy day. _

Rhaenyra clapped and shouted with the crowd, putting those things from her mind in the general jubilation. She had not seen her uncle in years, not since her mother and brother had died. One of the last links with the past, the simple days before Alicent. If her father was ready to take him back, she would not be far behind. She had missed him, she realized with a start.

"Uncle!" she shouted, rising to her feet. He turned and spying her, gave her a broad smile. "Uncle, uncle!"

"Niece," he said, making his way to her box. She threw her arms around him on impulse and he hugged her back fiercely in return. No one hugged her, except for her father. No one else wanted to.

"Have you come to stay?" she demanded. Merium scooted away and Daemon took her seat. She felt like a child as she said, "You must stay!"

He grinned at her. "I intend to, sweet. I have things to deal with."

"What times?"

He popped a Dornish date in his mouth and winked at her. This time his grin was definitely flirtatious and she found herself flushing. "Wouldn't you like to know."

He made her laugh during the bouts, with stories of his time in the Stepstones and Dragonstone, japes about the riders on the field and the court looking upon them. He had a clever story about everyone, it seemed. "What about me?" she demanded. "What do they say about me?"

"Ah Rhaenyra," he said tenderly, laying one finger on her cheek, "you are still so fresh and young and sweet. I have no stories to tell about you."

That should have pleased her but she made a face. "Meaning I'm too dull and dreary to have a story."

"Yet," he said. "Not all hope is lost, sweet. You are only four-and-ten after all. Even our fecund queen was five-and-ten before there were any delightfully scurrilous rumors about her." He plucked at a fold of her gown. "However, there is much promise to you. I do so like a woman who knows how to dress." And his eyes strayed innocently enough to Alicent, with a tell-tale smirk.

But when Ser Criston took the field, she had no attention to spare for her uncle. "He is our most gallant knight," she explained, a little breathless, a little flushed, after he had prevailed and left the field to wait his turn again. "And my sworn shield. I pray you repeat what you said, once more."

"Oh little niece," he said lightly, "there is so much I would like to tell you." He leaned towards her, his breath hot on her cheek. "Alone. Things that would delight you. And your shield. Him most of all."

"What things?" she said, drawing away.

"Things that every little girl should know," he said and tucked a curl of hair behind her ear, "if she wants to be a true woman." And he grinned at her as though he could read her thoughts.


	7. Alicent - The Light of the South

_Ser Otto's fifteen-year-old daughter, Alicent became his constant companion, fetching His Grace his meals, reading to him, helping him to bathe and dress himself. The Old King sometimes mistook her for one of his daughters, calling her by their names, near the end, he grew certain she was his daughter Saera, returned to him from beyond the narrow sea._

* * *

**103 AC, Maegor's Holdfast  
**

It was not enough to be fair of face. Honey-gold braids and a guileless smile could only take you so far in court - thrust against some dark wall, with your skirts around your waist. That was not what Alicent Hightower intended for herself.

Princess Aemma came to visit the king every morning, right after prayers. This daughter of House Arryn had much cause to pray, she had brought only a daughter to ten years of marriage - and countless sons who had either festered in the womb or died scarcely after they'd been named. Her ladies whispered that she had the womb sickness, that the carrying and bearing of another child would kill her.

_Not that her husband is like to mind._ Prince Viserys had the round, honest face of a country bumpkin but that was only a gift of the gods, as much as Alicent's beauty was. That could not hide the man he truly was. Not that it troubled her. _What he is, is kingly._

When the servants came to light the scented candles in the purple dusk, Prince Viserys would make his way to his grandfather's chambers. Sometimes he brought Princess Rhaenyra, his little delight as he called her. Of late though, he would come alone. When he came, Alicent was always ready for him - the sour smells of the old man's sickroom doused by rich perfumes. She would wear her hair loose about her shoulders and in the windowseat where she sat it would catch the last light of the sun and shine like burnished gold.

She had just laced herself in a tight brocade gown and begun to pluck at the strings of her mandolin - music soothed the old man to sleep and made her task much the easier - when the door opened. But it was not the Prince of Dragonstone who had come - it was his brother.

Lord Fleabottom, she would have called him to his face if she dared. Instead she swept him a low curtsey and prayed that his visit would be short.

"How now, my honey aunt?" he asked. It was a mild jape at the king's expense. In his dotage, Jaehaerys had quite convinced himself that Alicent was his youngest daughter, Saera the Wanderer, the one who had fled across the Narrow Sea long years before. "You look lush enough to eat."

"Shall I sing, Your Highness?" she asked. If she sang, she could not speak. "It gentles His Grace."

"And we all know you only have my grandfather's best interests at heart." Instead of sitting by the bedside, as a dutiful grandson would, he crossed the room in one long stride. He loomed over her and in fumbling haste, she missed a key. The music jarred and he laughed unpleasantly. "Some would say an old man's sickroom is no place for a young girl."

"I take joy in serving His Grace. I hope my small efforts bring him some comfort and cheer in his old age," she said.

He raised an eyebrow. "Ah little Alicent," he said, leaning against the frescoed wall. "How you've grown. They used to call you the honey maid in hopes of wooing you, but you kept your pot under lock and key. Now they call you the Light of the South. The Rosby girl had to fuck her way through half the court before they started to call her The Flower of the East. How _do_ you do it?"

_Coin, _she thought. _Singers are cheap._ None knew better than her the worth of a reputation."Virtue," she said demurely. "The rarest jewel in this court."

He laughed again. "You were not always so virtuous, sweetling."

She flushed in spite of herself. "I was a green maid, innocent of the ways of rogues," she said sharply. "You took advantage of me-"

He tsked. "It's not taking advantage if the woman's wet."

"-Your Highness, I am still maiden," she said coolly, "which is more than can be said of all your tawdry conquests in the backrooms and backalleys. I will not be shamed for my virtue."

"Waiting for a special someone, eh?" He studied her. "You look ripe for love, little Hightower. And you've a certain low cunning that I've come to admire. There are ways a woman can let herself be pleasured and still keep her maidenhead."

_I know, _she thought. Loquacious handmaids were always to be encouraged - they kept her informed of all the things that a highborn maiden should never know. Someday they might even come in use. But she feigned innocence and a blush for propriety. "Your Highness, I pray that you speak not to me of such things."

"And just when I'd begun to like you, you had to spoil it again," he said sighing. "Prim and dull again. Keep your virtue, Lady Alicent. May it bring your lover much joy."

_A royal bride must be a maiden, _she thought, curling her fists in her lap in irritation. He left, after a check on the king, and she leaned her head against the glass and waited for his brother. Presently he came, a softer, faded impression of Prince Daemon. Blurring at the edges. Pink-faced and inclined to stoutness.

_If he were more handsome I would have lost my heart and head to him because he can be so kind, _she thought, _I almost surrendered when Lord Fleabottom shoved me against the wall - and he was hard and cruel. __I might not have remembered to say no to his brother.  
_

"No change, eh?" Prince Viserys asked her, brushing his grandfather's forehead with gentle fingers. She shook her head. "You're a good girl, Alicent," he said. "Not many would be so devoted."

"It is my pleasure to serve," she said and added, with a self-conscious laugh, "my lady mother always said I was too soft." Of course Lady Hightower had said no such thing. If anything, people were more like to call Alicent hard and chary with her kindnesses, when she was a child. She fiddled with her metalwork brooch, drawing his attention to the expanse of bared white bosom above it. "I wish for nothing more than to attend His Grace, but my father..." And here she draws a sigh fathoms-deep. It is masterfully done for it piques his interest at once, as she had meant it to him.

"Yes?" he prompted, eyes latched on her throat and breasts.

She sighed. "He thinks it high time I was settled. Married. He would have me leave court to serve some husband I did not know or care for." She swallowed, fingers trembling like butterflies on the strings of her instrument. "I do not think I could bear it."

"I will have a word with Ser Otto. Surely he must understand that for a young girl of your delicate sensibilities, such a thing would be torture" the prince said. He crossed the room and patted her shoulder gently. "Oh no, you're far better situated at court tending my grandfather. I do not think any of us could bear to part with you. There now, sweetling, there's no need to cry."

Ever since she was six, she had had the power to summon up tears at will. In a house of brothers, it had served her well. Now, after a few theatrical sniffs she subsided, letting him stroke her hair and shoulders. It was very pleasant to be petted and she could tell that he was enjoying himself in the role of a goodly knight comforting a fair young damsel. "Thank you, my prince," she murmured, taking his hand and kissing his fingers. "I hope I shall serve you and your court for a long while to come."

"And the princess," he reminded her, though he did not specify which princess - whether his wife or his daughter.

She smiled sweetly up at him. "Of course, Your Highness," she said, "her most of all."


	8. Nettles - The Brown Rider

_It is one thing to face a dragon, another to face five. As Silverwing, Sheepstealer, Seasmoke, and Vermithor descended upon them, the men of the Triarchy felt their courage desert them. The line of warships shattered as one galley after another turned away. The dragons fell like thunderbolts, spitting balls of fire, blue and orange, red and gold, each brighter than the next. Ship after ship burst asunder or was consumed by flames. Screaming men leapt into the sea, shrouded in fire. Tall columns of black smoke rose up from the water. All seemed lost… all was lost… till Vermax flew too low, and went crashing down into the sea.  
_

**Archmaester Gyldayn**

* * *

**130 AC, Dragonstone**

Lovers shared a bed. But then, so did fathers and daughters.

"I'm your daughter, you know," Netty told _her_ Prince, the first time they met. "Me mam told me your pa's got more names than a cat has lives. Lord Fleabottom. The Prince o' the City, Rogue Prince. King o' the Stepstones. And that's you."

Prince Daemon, a wineskin in one hand and a breast in the other, favored her with a fond smile. He had a soldier's voice she was pleased to note, very different from the sleek, silvery whispers the other greatfolk used among themselves. A booming voice, made for shouting orders on the field and raucous japes at the campfires. "And who was your mam, little girl?" he asked carelessly.

"Some whore," she said cheerfully. She shoves off the bare-breasted slattern on his lap and unbidden, squats down next to him, claiming the best spot at the campfire as though its no more than her due.

He laughs at her cheek. She likes that about him too. Prince Jacaerys would have made her see suns and stars, a mailed fist to her ear and then a smiling warning to remember her place. "You're bold, I'll give you that."

"And clever," she reminds him. "I caught Sheepstealer all by myself. Nobody ever gave me the idea neither, it was all me."

"What's your name again?"

"Nettles." The girl she's ousted from Prince Daemon's lap laughs scornfully and even the prince smiles. "She named me that because I was born ugly," Netty says cheerfully, not taking offense at all. "She named my sister Violet because she was born pretty." Some girls dream of being pretty, of wearing rose-colored silks and floating in a cloud of perfume. But Netty has seen what happens to girls like that, traded like fillies for a few coppers after they begin to bleed for the first time, miserable little wretches. She'd rather be smart than pretty, any day.

"I've never had a father," she tells the prince, tearing off a chunk of chicken leg, as savage and graceless as the muddy-colored dragon she rides. She's fond of talking - fond of hearing the sound of her own voice, her mam would say - and she sees no reason to stop even if there's royal company at hand. "There _was_ Lightfinger Lenn, that's the closest I had to a pa growing up. Mam used to let him futter her for free. Well sometimes, when she was in a cheery way. And Lenn never tried to lift my skirts, not even when I sprouted jugs."

"Well who would?" the slut at the prince's knee sneers. She's too fine to eat with her fingers and she thinks her pretty face will find her favor with the prince. But she's wrong, so wrong and too stupid to realize. She thinks she's special, just like every other hopeful young whore (and growing up in a brothel, Netty's seen her share of whores). Really she's only another sweet piece of flesh, to be fucked and forgotten. But Netty is a _dragonrider_. "You couldn't have a man, even if you paid him, you're just as brown and wrinkly as a raisin."

Netty opens her mouth, vinegar on her tongue, but Prince Daemon forestalls her. "I would," he murmurs, his voice low and intimate as though they are quite alone together instead of in the middle of a dirty war camp. As though she's a lady in a fine linen shift in the midst of a pool of candlelight and he has eyes only for her.

"Would what?" she asks stupidly, a flush rising to her brown cheeks.

"Lift your skirts, sweet," he says.

He does bed her that night and though he's not the first inside her, - she'd rather not think of the first - he's the first to make her cry out in pleasure, not pain. Bred on Dragonstone, conditioned to regard the Targaryens in the same light as the Seven, she doesn't find it strange that a man might wish to bed his daughter. On the contrary, she appreciates the fact that he should choose to seek _her_ out, plain brown Netty when he could have any girl from camp or castle with a snap of his fingers.

Afterwards, he pours her wine himself and strokes her heavy black hair with his fine, white fingers. "You might be mine, child," he acknowledges as she closes her eyes and purrs in delight. "As it happened, I did spend a time on Dragonstone sixteen years ago."

"And I'm a dragonrider," she reminds him importantly. She's very anxious for him to remember that she is special, not just some whore's get. "Do you have trueborn daughters?"

"Twins," he says and an unexpected tenderness washes over his hard face. It makes her jealous. "Baela and Rhaena, my first wife's daughters."

"I'll bet they don't ride dragons," she sneers, tossing her hair.

"Baela does," he says. His smile is wry as though he can sense her jealousy, as though it amuses him. "She rides Moondancer. Rhaena hasn't hatched an egg of her own yet, poor child. She feels the loss keenly."

"Well," Netty says, floundering for an attack, "I know your lass doesn't fight in the field, for sure. Not like me."

"She's scarce fourteen."

"She's a spoiled little princess then if she hides in her tower, all nice and safe, and doesn't fight with her pa like she should. And I'm only sixteen." Netty scowls.

"An exquisite age." He cups her small breasts with both hands, his palms and fingers warm as he strokes her nipples to hardness. "Peace, my Nettles. You must be my daughter, with that temper on you."

When dawn creeps over the horizon, his man-servant turfs her gently but firmly from the chamber. "It would not be seemly were you to be seen abed with His Highness," he twitters at her while she hops around the room, wriggling into her boots. "If word should reach the Queen-"

"The Queen must know he has lovers," Netty protests.

"Lovers yes, but not those who stay the night. That is a wife's privilege. Be off with you, child!"

Netty stops at the door, wistful as she watches her sleeping prince. "Will he send for me tonight?" she asks anxiously. "Or the night after? I'm not picky, only-"

"The Prince will send you a token of his esteem," the servant says. "And if you have pleased him, yes, he might send for you again." His voice indicates that he rather doubts it, breathing life into the fears that crowd her mind and feed her imagination.

Netty bristles at once. "I'm not like the others!" she snaps. "I'm his daughter."

"I'm sure you are," the man yawns. "Now shoo, please."

From then on, Prince Daemon smiles at her if he chances upon her at mealtimes, he sends her a pair of supple calfskin boots and a bolt of figured gold silk to make herself a tunic (as though she can sew - hah), he watches her when she takes Sheepstealer out for rides and offers her advice on her flying technique... but it is never enough for her. One glorious day, he shares a peach fresh from Highgarden with her and she cherishes the memory for days, brooding over it on long, dull days and dreaming of it, extending it at night. She wants a lover. She wants a father.

Once the twins come to see her practicing. Rhaena of Pentos, the paler and prettier of the two, clings to her father's hand, her white-and-gold silk skirts whispering over the ground. Baela, taller and more forward and clad in deeper hues than her sister, skips ahead. "You're not as bad as I thought," her ladyship condescends to say while Nettles works hard to keep the scorn off her face.

"Why would you think I'd be bad?" Netty snaps, coiling her steel-tipped whip which she uses to train Sheepstealer and thrusting it through her belt. "Did your lord father tell you that?"

Lady Rhaena opens her watery violet eyes very wide and says childishly, "Jace didn't think much of you, you know. Because you're only a little girl-" that is true, she is a very small-sized girl, shorter than even the twins -"and because you caught Sheepstealer with trickery and bastard's guile." Baela nods vigorously, supporting her sister's words.

Before Netty can breathe fire on those two stupid girls, Prince Daemon rescues her. "Jace can be abrasive. Netty's small but she's clever," he tells his trueborn daughters and though he smiles appreciatively at her, her pleasure is somewhat soured by the easy affection between him and the twins. It's not _fair. _"And personally, I'd rather use my brains to catch a dragon then try brute force and end up a hot meal."

That is before the Battle of the Gullet.

Five dragons take to the skies - Silverwing, Seasmoke, Vermithor, Vermax and smallest and ugliest of all, Sheepstealer - and Netty thinks she's never truly lived before this. They fight over water, for the first time. The False King has bought himself a fleet from the Triarches across the Narrow Sea and as luck would have it, they've captured the cog carrying Queen Rhaenyra's youngest sons. Prince Aegon and Prince Viserys, who are Prince Daemon's own sons.

It is easy to pretend that the men aboard the Lysene galleys aren't real - they're damned Greens after all, aren't they, her sworn enemies? Some of them affect vari-colored hair and beards - green, blue, purple - and its easy to think of them as nothing more than the straw dummies she's practiced her technique on, when they begin to burn. She has no pity to spare for men who die with swords in hand. No matter how gruesome, she has seen too many innocents die to care about men who go to their fates with their eyes wide open.

Some of the other dragons begin to feast on men during the battle, swooping down and snapping them in half with their powerful jaws, bones crunching loud enough for her to hear hundreds of feet above them. Not Sheepstealer though - he's never developed a taste for human flesh, for which she's glad. Their screams leave such a clamoring in Netty's ears that eventually she becomes deaf to it.

The battle lasts a day and a night. They fight in the darkness, they fight in the light, through black smoke and icy shafts of sunlight, and finally when she lands at Dragonstone, they have lost. She supposes she ought to be sad, but really its still little more than a game to her. A game which she's only just now begun to play, thanks to her cunning and skill and perseverance. Sticky with mud and blood, she squats down outside the castle and leans against Sheepstealer. Servants fetch food for girl and dragon and she listens while lords and knights pass back and forth.

"Spicetown was sacked and High Tide put to torch-"

"I'll bet the Sea Snake's roaring now, like he's never roared before-"

"Aye, but the Triarch lost two-and-sixty ships-"

"What price two-and-sixty ships to a prince? A thousand would not be enough-"

"Jace is dead, you know." Prince Daemon approaches her on cat-feet, folding his long, lean body next to her. She offers him half her food and methodically, he begins to tear a chunk of bread into tiny pieces. "Prince Jacaerys, his lady mother's hope and heir. A Myrish quarrel it was. Vermax too, drowned by the look of it."

"She still has three sons left," Netty points out reasonably. _And she can make more, I suppose since she's still of breeding years. For all that she's said to be a shrew, she does like her husband. _And really, what sensible woman _wouldn't _like Prince Daemon?

"Two. My son Viserys was captured and the gods only know what they will do to him." His tone is measured but there is no mistaking the anger churning in his gut, crystallizing his words to an icy hardness. "The boy is only eight."

"Poor little prince," she says sympathetically but really, it hardly matters to her what they do to a petted princeling. Starve him, stab him, drown him, burn him. In brothels all over the realm, men do that - and more - to whores every night.

"And Jace, poor, brave lad, his mother's heart will break to hear it. And mine too." But the way he says it, the way he sighs ever so deeply yet without a glimmer of grief or tears in his dark eyes, tells her the truth of the matter. The Black Queen's heart might stop in her chest to hear of her son's death, her councilors might mourn for the lost heir, but Prince Daemon is not sad, not sad at all.

"I thought you'd be happy, Highness," she says suddenly. "With Prince Jacaerys dead, there's only Prince Joffrey between you and your boys and the Iron Throne." He raises an eyebrow but she plunges boldly on, where a wiser woman might have thought to hold her tongue. "The Queen's lost a son, but he was none of your get. You still have Prince Aegon and Prince Viserys, even though he's captured. And I don't think you're fighting this war to set Harwin Strong's bastards upon the throne."

"That's high treason, child." But he smiles lazily at her as he says it, as though it does not matter very much.

"Yes but its a treason every child in the seven kingdoms learns growing up," she says pertly.

A ghost of a smile brightens his face. "Nettles," he says, "what a quick weaselly little brain you have. I like that."

"Do you like that in a lover?" She winks at him, saucy little Netty, so pert and free in her ways, but she is more anxious than she lets on. If he should reject her...

He takes her hand, as though she's a lady fair, and presses it to his lips. "In a lover," he says, stroking her damp hair off her forehead. "And in a daughter too. Stay with me tonight, Netty. There is so much we have to talk about."

"Yes pa," she beams and she thinks she would give up her dragon, she would tear out her red, beating heart from her chest and present it to him, just to see that smile of his.

* * *

**A/N: I based this on a vague yet plausible theory that instead of being Daemon's lover, Nettles "the bastard girl" was his daughter and "dragonseed". Naturally, being Valyrian, daughter and lover became ahem, interchangeable. **


	9. Mysaria - The White Worm

_It was in the brothels of the city that he found a favorite, a paramour — a very pale Lysene dancer named Mysaria, whose looks and reputation led the prostitutes who knew her to call her Misery, the White Worm. Later, she became Daemon's master of whispers._

**\- The World of Ice and Fire**

* * *

_In his youth, Daemon Targaryen's face and laugh were familiar to every cut-purse, whore, and __gambler in Flea Bottom. The prince still had friends in the low places of King's Landing, and __followers amongst the gold cloaks. Unbeknownest to King Aegon, the Hand, or the Queen Dowager, __he had allies at court as well, even on the green council… and one other go-between, a special friend __he trusted utterly, who knew the wine sinks and rat pits that festered in the shadow of the Red Keep as __well as Daemon himself once had, and moved easily through the shadows of the city. To this pale __stranger he reached out now, by secret ways, to set a terrible vengeance into motion._

**\- Archmaester Gyldayn**

* * *

**129 AC, King's Landing**

"I'm Cheese," the little man says. A scruffy small fellow, he looks very like the rats he catches - a quivering nose, forever sniffing out secrets and pink eyes, narrow with slyness.

"Blood," says the big man. At Cheese's look of inquiry, he gives a short laugh. It's as ugly as the rest of him. "Used to be a proper sergeant in the Watch, I did. But then they kicked me out and only coz I used my fists on a whore. Cor, that's hardly a crime is it? Stupid cunt, she died." He shrugs, dismissing it as a minor peccadillo and Cheese tut-tuts in sympathy. Blood leers at her, "She looked mighty like you, lady. Might be 'twas your twin sister I fucked and beat to death. Or was it the other way 'round?"

"I have no sisters, twins or otherwise," Mysaria says indifferently. "And you may call me Worm."

These are hard men she has summoned. They are not of the common run of men, who would catch their breath in the face of her beauty - and if she has anything, she has her beauty -, they are not awed to silence by the ermines that edge her cloak or the pearls that stud her brow. The thief sums up her price from head to heel and wonders if she might notice a missing gem, deftly snatched. The murderer calculates how hard she would struggle against him and therefore, how long it would take to subdue her.

_Just as well._

"So," Blood says, cracking his knuckles, "what do you want us for, lady?" His hands are as wide across as her upper arms, huge and hairy with coarse, wiry black hair, hands that like to hurt. He means to intimidate her with his sheer size but she will have none of it. She has known men like him before, lain writhing under them as a child when her mother was short of coin, and they have long seized to frighten her. _Big men die like small men._

"Do you often call upon debtors?" she asks. "Sweet words will avail me naught against those who owe me. I fear that they must be taught a sharper lesson, to remind them that they are... overdue." And as she says the word, she almost shivers. She knows what it is like to be overdue.

_Missy, missy, be a good sort. We're overdue our rent but if you lie with Brownthumb he'll look the other way. _And no matter how long or how hard she struggled against her mother - kicking, screaming, biting - in the end she would always be dragged, bruised and wailing, to a hot, empty room. And there she would be shoved onto a straw pallet and held down by a larger man, stinking of ale and laughing in her face. _Missy, missy, hold still, my girl._

Blood grins, catching her meaning at once. "Oh aye," he says cheerfully. "I've gone debt collecting before. Times have been tough since I was dismissed, make no mistake, and I've often had to pick up the odd job or two. Mind you, it wasn't a hardship. I've smashed bones, cracked skulls... I've always managed to collect my debts. Makes me a sort of Lannister, come to think of it!" He gives a booming laugh at his witticism and she offers him a polite smile.

Cheese glances at her uneasily. "I haven't."

"I have another task in mind for you," she tells him. "You are a rat-catcher in the Red Keep. The best at your job, if I have been told true."

Cheese gives her a modest smile. "Comes o' eating rats," he offers. "Most people'd turn up their noses at it but roasted and skewered, they taste just like chicken, I say. Once you come round t' eating them, you start ter think like 'em little buggers too. Ever tried a rat, lady?"

"I fear that I have never tasted that delicacy, not even in Lys," she says dryly. "You are well-acquainted with the Red Keep?"

"None better, lady," he assures her. And then, "The Red Keep, mind. Not Maegor's."

"It is the Tower of the Hand that interests me," she tells him. "Where Green Alicent has taken up lodgings."

"The Queen?" Cheese wrings his bony hands fretfully. "Lady, I'm fair at what I do but-"

"The Queen Dowager, as she now is." She nudges the lumpy sackcloth bag at her feet. The hempen rope around the neck has been loosened, in the darkness of the sultry room you can see a gleam of gold within. "There's more where that came from."

"She's a fair baggage," Blood says, inclined to gregariousness by the sight of a bag of dragons. "I seen her pass by, she has a right skinny neck. Shouldn't be hard if it's just her."

"I have no quarrel with the Hightower woman," she says, mild as spring. "Her apartments now, they are a floor below the Hand's. Can you enter them, sight unseen, unheard?"

Cheese swallows convulsively, his apple bobbing furiously in his scrawny neck but at last he gives a small nod. "I been," he says in a low voice. "Swiped a gold pin, once, just for practice, mind, to keep myself sharp. Bought myself a squirrel-fur collar, warm as you please, with the gold. But I daren't ever go back since. Cor, won't she have her ladies and the Kingsguard?"

"The Kingsguard have enough on their hands defending their king. Alicent is the least of their troubles. As for her ladies, she will not need their attendance when her daughter comes to visit."

"Queen Helaena," Blood says and sucks in his cheeks appreciatively. "Now there's a juicy morsel."

"An eye for an eye, a son for a son," she says, repeating the words of Daemon's letter. "She has two sons. Prince Jaehaerys is six, Prince Maelor two. It is their blood that is due, to wash out the stain of Prince Lucerys' murder."

The mention of the boys' tender years raises no chord with the men she has chosen. They actually seem glad of it. And why not? Little boys have such soft spines, such slender necks.

"Their mother will bring them to visit their grandmother at dusk," she says. "She may have her little girl with her as well. You will leave the women untouched and you will ask the mother which of her sons she is ready to forfeit. One son, mind. One prince."

"Untouched." Blood tugs at his thick black whiskers. "That's mighty hard to ask of a man with a ripe mare and her sweet little filly in the same room. But we'll need to touch them to subdue them, eh?" He gives her a sly little look but she will have none of it. The girl is six, for gods' sake. Daemon would laugh, clap Blood on the back, impressed with his low cunning but she will have none of it.

"You won't have more than an hour at most," she says coolly. "Queen Helaena's visits are never overlong and after visiting her mother, she takes her children to the nursery to put them to sleep. If she is late, the wrong sort of people will take notice. However, _if_ you can arrange to have your sport while still fulfilling your task in that short span... well I will hardly be there to stop you."

With the air of a man putting two and two together and triumphantly coming up with four, Cheese says, "Th' Black Queen sent you!"

Blood spits on the ground to show what he thinks of her and no wonder. In that he is like many kingslanders who look askance at the sour, supercilious woman the Realm's Delight has become. They say that she has the temper of a harpy and the constancy of a whore and in that they are not far wrong. "Well, gold's gold," he says fairly. "I'll serve the Black Queen as I would the Green."

"Not Queen Rhaenyra," she says. _Where would proud Rhaenyra know to find a whore to do her filthy work? _"Her consort, Prince Daemon."

"Th' Prince o' the City," Cheese says with relish. "Oh aye, he's a good sort, make no mistake o' it."

Blood's face comes as close as it ever can to a smile. "I drank with him once," he said. "Well," he says fairly, "he paid for a round for all of us off duty at _The Slippery Eel_. Good man, good captain. I'd be proud to serve him any day, now. If it's his boy he wants vengeance for, well I'm honored to be called 'pon." He squints at her. "You his whore?"

"Yes," Mysaria says baldly. Some women, who have risen from selling their bodies in narrow Fleabottom alleys to the Street of Silk, like to mask their position with pretty words and empty honors. They are not_ whores, _thank you, they are _mistresses_, _courtesans, ladies of the night. _Not her. Since she was six, she's always known what she was and rather than let it be her shame, she thinks of it as her strength. "I am his whore by night and his servant in all things by day."

"How'd Prince Lucerys die?" Blood asks. When she gives him a questioning look, wondering why it is of any interest to him, he explains. "I thought his pa might prefer his boy avenged in the same way. If he had his throat cut, I could get a dirk for the little princeling. If he was bludgeoned, I'll look for a nice, big hammer, smash his baby face in. Poetic, _I_ call it."

"Oh." She clears her thought. "Your dedication is commendable. Prince Lucerys drowned. So unless you are prepared to lug a water basin to the Tower of the Hand and spend the time to hold a squirming child within it, you'd best see that he has a quick death." _A mercy, _her Daemon would call it and grimace. _Mercy's too good for the likes of them. _But he is not here to tell these men the manner of vengeance he desires. She is here, giving his commands. And mercy, mercy can surely never be wrong?

"Then I'll keep my sword sharp," Blood promises.


	10. Criston - The Kingmaker

_However it happened, from that day forward the love that Ser Criston Cole had borne for Rhaenyra Targaryen turned to loathing, and the man who had hitherto been the princess's constant companion and champion became the most bitter of her foes._

**\- Archmaester Gyldayn**

* * *

**114 AC, King's Landing**

Criston's throat is parchment-dry. "I have sinned most grievously," he says huskily. "I would be absolved."

"Men sin as easily as they breathe," the septon tells him. "You do right to turn to the gods. How have you transgressed, my son?"

He turns his eyes to the Maiden, laughing on her plinth. Her marble tresses are all a tumble as though she has just risen from her bed, her pouting lips full of promises and her beauty almost too bold and brazen for the sept. The craftsman has done his work too well, no mortal man can resist this goddess. In vain, Criston tries to turn his thoughts to piety but it is no good. _Her _form, contorted in all manner of lewd postures, her smile languorous and inviting, is branded in his brain.

"I-I have had impure thoughts about a woman," he says. The septon nods patiently as though to say who hasn't? "A lady far above me in rank and wed to another."

"A venal sin," the septon says. "I would urge you to-"

"She pushed me to it!" he bursts out angrily. It is not right that he should bear the weight of the sin alone. "She inflamed me with her body, strutting her wares like the most shameless harlot-"

A woman laughs, the sound low and musical in the empty sept. "Your Grace," the septon murmurs, sinking to his knees.

Queen Alicent wears the palest of greens, almost silvery, the color of springtime shoots and willow leaves. Her honey-gold braids, so much richer in tint than Rhaenyra's wheat-gold, she wears in a jeweled _crispine_. "Ser Criston," she says, addressing herself to him, "Forgive me. I could not help but overhear the last of your confession. Will you walk with me?"

"Your Grace's command is my pleasure," he says gallantly, taking the proffered arm. He can hardly refuse his queen.

"I did not see your name in the lists set down for the day's jousting," she says. "I thought you meant to bear my stepdaughter's token?"

"She has other knights," he says shortly. Alicent raises her plucked eyebrows delicately, as though to say _oh really? _The slight gesture manages to imbue his innocently-spoken words with the filthiest of meanings - but then, Alicent Hightower has always had excellent control of her face. Every modulation of her graceful hands, every shift of her pleasing face is steeped in significance.

"Other knights," she echoes him. "Such Ser Harwin Strong. I hear she has given her favor to Breakbones... and much else."

"Gossip," he says brusquely. "Forgive me, Your Grace, but I will have no part in calumnies spread against the princess's good name."

"When half-a-dozen men whisper it, it is gossip," she says. "When it is half-a-hundred, it is a truth. Surely you have heard the tale, Ser Criston?" He has and it sours him like curdled milk. That she should give her virtue to that grinning ape when he had- he had-... without thinking, he clenches his fist and Alicent takes note at once. "It is hard for those who love her well to hear it," she says swiftly. "When I think of the child she was, so bright and beautiful, and how she let herself be debased- but it is not sweet Rhaenyra's fault alone. Her rogue of an uncle played no small part in her downfall."

_You never loved her, you old hag, _he thinks sardonically but he has to agree that yes, Prince Daemon has a hand in his princess's shame. "She offered herself to me," he says dully. "The night before last." The night before her wedding. The loathing it inspires in him is enough to make him retch - that she should tarnish the purity of his love by making such an offer, that she should think... that she should think...

Alicent's eyes gleam, like a lioness's who has scented a kill. "Did you have her?" she asks bluntly.

He looks at her, horrified that she should think such a thing. "Gods above, Your Grace, no! I have loved her since she was a child of seven and named me her white knight and I have perhaps thought of her in ways not befitting my honor or her rank since she became a woman but no- no. I never could."

Oh the nights he has writhed in silent lust in his sterile chamber in the White Sword. The dawns he was woken, sheets drenched in sweat and face twisted in futile, baffled desire. To be so near her, night and day, day and night, and never to do more than take her arm at supper or on walks to the garden. To hear her whisper her secrets to him, confess her deepest fears and longings, to be her protector and almost her husband in closeness and never to be allowed to take her in his arms and love her as a man does a woman.

"Then you are more honorable than any man now alive," Alicent says with a tinkling laugh. "You belong to the Age of Heroes, Ser Criston. So my stepdaughter offered herself to you. No doubt she offered you her tongue and her teats, whichever should please you most."

Her crudeness takes him aback but only for a moment. There is no love lost between queen and princess, this viciousness is no less than he should expect. "She came to me naked under her cloak last night," he says, swallowing thickly at the memory. The swansdown collar tickling her white throat, her flaxen hair trailing over full, milky breasts. He will never forget, never. And, he finds to his shock, that he does not particularly want to. "She offered me her _maidenhead_ and said it would mean little and less to her betrothed."

Alicent sucks in her breath in pleased delight. "Wanton," she sighs, folding her hands piously in her lap. "Her lord father would be grieved... yet not surprised. We all know how she would disport herself with Daemon."

Criston has heard it too, the ugly rumors that at first he staunchly refused to believe. Now he is not so sure. "She has valor and wisdom and I once thought her the most queenly of women. But how can I serve a woman so debased?" he asks wretchedly. _She has betrayed me, as a princess and a woman. _He does not know which is worse.

"You cannot," the queen tells him brusquely. "To aid and abet her in her shame would only besmirch your honor." She fingers a fold of his white cloak. "She has appointed Breakbones as her champion today. It is counted a slight against you and a signal mark of how far the Strong boy has risen in her favor." She licks her lips. "For services rendered. You take my meaning?"

He nods.

"Criston," she murmurs, her voice rich and throaty, as she lays her hand over his. "You know me for a virtuous woman. You know how hard I have worked to win my place at this doubting court, at the king's side. Serve me instead of her. Wear the green ribbon in place of the black at the lists today. Stand against Breakbones and Laenor's catamite, Lonmouth, and I promise you, you will never regret it."

That Alicent is rigidly virtuous, he has no doubt. That she uses her beauty, her woman's wiles as freely as she does her wit to maintain her position at court and the king's heart, he knows. _Wear the green ribbon in place of the black_. It is just one day, he thinks to himself. Rhaenyra will see - must see - that there are others who appreciate his value, who treat him with dignity - not just as a receptacle for their baser needs.

"I will be proud to serve you, my queen," he lies. For he will serve her, but not with pride as he has served his princess these many years. If he serves her, it will be for vengeance.


	11. Laenor Velaryon - The Bridegroom

_Ser Criston Cole turned to Queen Alicent instead. Her Grace was pleased to grant him her favor. Wearing her token, the young Lord Commander of the Kingsguard defeated all challengers, fighting in a black fury. He left Breakbones with a broken collarbone and a shattered elbow (prompting Mushroom to name him Brokenbones thereafter), but it was the Knight of Kisses who felt the fullest measure of his wroth. Cole's favorite weapon was the morningstar, and the blows he rained down on Ser Laenor's champion cracked his helm and left him senseless in the mud. Borne bloody from the field, Ser Joffrey died without recovering consciousness six days later. Mushroom tells us that Ser Laenor spent every hour of those days at his bedside and wept bitterly when he died._

**\- The Rogue Prince**

* * *

**114 AC, King's Landing**

"Ribbons are for girls," the princess declared. "But I am a woman wed today and Ser Harwin, you must carry my garter before you into the fray." That Princess Rhaenyra's smile was scintillating, no man present could gainsay. That her behavior thereafter, following her bold words, was salacious, no woman would dispute.

Bending in her royal box for decorum, she allowed her ladies to shield her from view while her closest handmaid, a Strong girl and sister to Ser Harwin, bent swiftly under her skirts. A garter was detached from the royal thigh, a frail, perishable streamer of lacy flowers. Giggling, Lyanna Strong passed it to her mistress who, with twinkling eyes that belied her solemnity, offered it to Ser Harwin.

Queen Alicent glanced at her husband but the king, never ready to see more than what was set before him, merely smiled on benignly. Rhaenyra was in high spirits that was all, and as a newlywed bride the reason was evident. He saw no impropriety in her behavior and neither did her young husband, lounging gracefully at her side. The queen fanned herself more vigorously, a heated flush of displeasure rising to her cheeks.

"Wear this on your lance," the princess bade him, her tone rich with innuendo, "and think of me as you do." Standing behind the princess, her sworn shield still, Ser Criston's hands clenched over the pommel of his longsword. But no one noticed him, of course.

Ser Laenor, the much-ignored bridegroom, bestirred himself. "As my lady and princess does, so shall I," he said. His eyes, calflike in their adoration, followed his own champion. "Ser Joffrey," he said to Lonmouth, "Wear my garter, but not on your lance I pray you. Wear it close to your heart."

"I would be honored to, my lord," the Knight of Kisses avowed.

Princess Rhaenyra tipped her head back to whisper to her handmaids. "It would be ill-suited to Lonmouth's lance," she murmured, her lips barely moving, "for my lord husband, despite his doltish ways, has a masterful air around his lovers. It pleases him to have Lonmouth lie still beneath him, playing the catamite to his manful thrusts." Ser Laenor's garter was cherry-red, a gay, frivolous thing of silk.

"Husband and wife seem well suited," the queen drawled.

"Hmm? Oh yes quite right, my love, quite right," the king said, his attention snapping back from the pumpkin tarts he had been regarding so lovingly. That her words and tone were congenial on the surface were all that mattered to him. He chose to look no further.

"Your Highness, do I have your leave to prepare for the melee?" Ser Criston asked her.

Where once she would always turn to him with a warm smile, like a sunflower towards the sun, now she did not so much as glance at him. Instead she took her time picking amongst the sweetmeats and savories set before her on the silver tray, as though his words had not registered at all. Laughing, Ser Laenor popped a caramelized date in her mouth. She favored him with a glowing smile and then a long kiss on the mouth - through closed lips, the ones near to her saw - before finally sparing a glance for patient Ser Criston.

"Go," she said indifferently, much the same way she might say fetch to her dog. "I've no use for you here."

Ser Laenor was full twenty years old, but by the way he chirped at his bride you would think him ten. "I do so hope Joffrey wins," he said anxiously. "I have promised him a tun of our best summerwine if he wants and his choice of a dagger from the armory."

"Only a dagger, sweetling?" In a favorable mood, the princess was disposed to be indulgent. His twittering had grated on her nerves at the wedding and the ceremony and the banquet - _oh but I insisted that I be married in ivory satin, mamma wanted me to don red and black but I said to her mamma, a wedding is a special occassion for your baby boy, do you not want him to be turned out in the best array and besides ivory suits me best, it really brings out my coloring... _But on this pleasant, sunny morning he was harmless enough with his naive gaiety.

Ser Laenor blushed. "I wanted to give him something more," he said sulkily. "But papa forbade me. He said I was too open-handed with my affections by far."

"Ah but you're a sweet boy," Rhaenyra said, patting his hand. "For your sake, I will add more benefices if Lonmouth wins. A bolt of indigo velvet to make himself a pretty cloak, how would you like that?"

Ser Laenor's delight was almost pathetically transparent. "You are too kind," he said happily. "Papa said I must man up for you- oh never mind what papa said but it was dreary. He's forever lecturing me."

Rhaenyra tut-tutted in sympathy. Lyanna Strong, who viewed her mistress's easy fondness towards her husband with growing alarm, leaned forward to whisper in her ear. "You find him charming now," she warned her friend, "but it is only the charm of a weakling, a child."

"I know," Rhaenyra said lazily.

Harwin Strong had the first tilt, against a Hightower, one of the Queen's many brothers. Rhaenyra leaped to her feet as he rode off the field. "Oh he is magnificent!" she cried as she saw her garter streaming bravely before him, tied tightly to the point of his lance.

"He's a big, brawny brute at any rate," Ser Laenor said languidly. "Handsome in his own way, I'll give you that but I prefer men to be smaller and sleeker."

Rhaenyra glanced at slender, straw-haired Joffrey Lonmouth and saw his meaning at once. "You are very close to Ser Joffrey," she said mischievously.

Flippantly he replied, "No less than you are said to be to Ser Harwin. Or Ser Criston. Or even your uncle Daemon. Or... well let us be frank, sweet wife, a score of other men."

"Fork-tongued gossip," she snapped.

"Forgive me, sweetling," he said, taking her hand and pressing it ardently to his heart. "I meant no harm, I only repeated what was said to me." The smallfolk scattered around the field, who had come to see the show the royal family provided as much as the jousting knights, were delighted. They felt as though they had finally got their time's worth when the newlyweds acted as all newlyweds should, in their opinion. Happy and in love. It did much to dispel the dark rumors that had spread themselves about both bride and groom and Rhaenyra knew it.

"I am always ready to forgive you, my love," she said and kissed him again. Or rather, she smashed her lips against his. This time she opened her mouth and forced his open as well. She let her hands trail through his long hair and over his narrow face and with only a small shudder to express his distaste, he let her. When they broke apart, gasping for air, she wore the grim smile of an unpleasant duty well done and he twisted his face into the closest approximation of lustful delight that he could muster.

"Rhaenyra is being unusually pleasant today," the king said amiably. "It must be because of the bedding. Women's humors, as the maesters say."

"Oh it can't last long," the queen said waspishly. "Her pleasantness or the bedding." On her lap, the youngest of her brood, two-year-old Daeron stirred uneasily as though he could sense his mother's foul mood.

"Mamma," six-year-old Helaena announced, tugging at her mother's sleeve, "can I have a gown made up like Rhaenyra's?"

Alicent smiled and not very pleasantly. "I hardly think you would want to, sweetling," she said. "Your half-sister has such execrable taste."

Between bouts, Prince Daemon drifted towards his niece's box. "You will make me quite jealous," he said, toying with one of her spiral curls. "Toying with that little boy, would you break your old uncle's heart?"

"Yes," she said distractedly. Her heart was on the green, where Ser Criston and Ser Harwin now faced each other. "I cannot look," she whispered and for half-a-moment, pressed her palms over her eyes before remembering that she was a princess, someday to be queen, and that it was not fitting. The Strong girls, Deanna and Lyanna, clutched each of her hands and hearts in their throats, they watched.

"_Brokenbones_," a very distinct voice announced, after both knights had had a turn at eachother. Ser Criston rode triumphant to the end of the field, but Ser Harwin toppled off his horse. The princess bit her lips and held so tight to her companions' hands that their rings cut into their flesh and their knuckles turned white - but she did not weep. "Breakbones is now Brokenbones."

Instead she said, in a very hard voice, "Find the scoundrel who said that of Ser Harwin and have him whipped within an inch of his life. I will suffer no disparagement towards such a noble knight."

"I will see to it," Ser Laenor offered.

"Thank you, husband." She rose to her feet. "I will have words with Ser Criston now. His conduct was shameful - shameful!"

"I thought," Prince Daemon observed innocently, "that such injuries were par for the course in this noble sport?"

She did not rise to his bait. Instead, skirts snapping about her feet, she marched towards the pavilions set aside for the Kingsguard. Her ladies trailed her like anxious ducklings and behind her fan, Queen Alicent hid a sly smile.

"The bookmakers laid odds against Criston to Harwin, you know," Prince Daemon told the young bridegroom. "They were two against one, the last time I checked. Judging from the black look on my niece's face, they should only rise in Strong's favor now."

"Oh really," Ser Laenor yawned. His wife barely interested him, her lovers - purported or otherwise - not at all. Presently she returned to him once more, her face as red as her gown. Being a man of great delicacy of feeling, Ser Laenor politely inquired as to Ser Harwin's condition.

"His collarbone and his elbow," she said. "He should be fine with rest and care. But _Criston _\- oh I slapped his face and d'you know, he stood there and took it? I told him what a scoundrel he was, that just because I had-" and here the color rose to her cheeks, as though at some secret, shameful memory -"well I despise him and I want nothing more to do with him."

"Quite right," her uncle said. "I always thought the man a trifle... unbalanced. Runs hot, then cold and those pale eyes of his - nothing'd turn a woman's blood to ice faster. You want a man like Harwin Strong, sweet, as steady as an ox to the plow and as cheerful as a canary in a cage."

"I have shown him so much kindness, so much favor!" the princess burst out angrily. "And he repays me in such a fashion? When he knows how fond I am of dear Ser Harwin, oh it is too much to bear. And even though he knew I was in a rage, he said _nothing_. I could have done with a good fight."

Prince Daemon laughed, but not unkindly. "If that is how it feels like to be young, then I am glad that those years are well and truly past me."

Ser Laenor gave him a sleepy look through heavy-lidded eyes. "Not yet, nuncle," he said, his glance raking over the tall, handsome man appreciatively. And then he remembered that his lover was due to ride in the melee and that it would begin at any moment. Guiltily, he switched back to the field again.

For her mistress's edification, Deanna Strong recited the names of the best knights from both the opposing teams. "The Lannister twins, Tyland and Jason, are together of course-"

"-they both made a play for my hand, you know," Rhaenyra told her husband. "I told them I never could tell them apart so if I ever married one, I would expect them both to service me as husbands. That did not go over so well."

"-Ser Criston has his morningstar, of course-"

"Pray do not speak to us of the insufferable Cole," Rhaenyra sniffed, affecting the regal we in her disdain.

"As you will, my lady. Luthor Largent, my but he must be one of the biggest men I've ever seen! Naturally he prefers to bludgeon his opponents. The Bastard of Raventree has his bow of course, he is said to be a most accomplished fletcher as well as a bowman. Ser Bryndon Hightower, they call him the flower of chivalry in Oldtown-"

"And this is not Oldtown," Rhaenyra said curtly. "I will have no talk of Hightowers."

"Ser Forrest Frey-"

"Really, Rhaenyra, have _all_ your past suitors taken to the field today?" Prince Daemon yawned. "A bloodbath of lovers, to be sure."

"Frey clung to my skirts in fear of something worse," Rhaenyra said scornfully. "His father threatened him with the Vypren maid if he couldn't get himself married within the year. But he has his uses, he's loyal as a dog and just as appetizing in a woman's bed."

"Oh look there's Joffrey with my garter!" Laenor said brightly. "Joffrey, Joffrey!"

Rhaenyra pulled him down - he had just began to rise to wave madly to his lover. "Sit down," she snapped. "You are making a spectacle of yourself."

He threw her an ironic look. "As you did when you went tearing off after Ser Criston." But he did sit down, if not for fear of his wife than for fear of his father, glowering at him beneath bushy brows. The Sea Snake's wrath was not to be treated lightly and though Laenor was a married man, it was his lord father who still handled the expenses of his estate for him. And they were vast for naturally the heir to High Tide and future prince consort had to maintain himself in suitable style. Jeweled doublets and peacock-prowed pleasure barges did not come cheap. And naturally Joffrey expected occasional gifts too, not that he wasn't entitled, the sweet lad...

Petulantly, he tugged at a fold of Rhaenyra's gown. If he knew anything about fabric - and he knew a great deal - it was Tyroshi brocade, thrice-dyed so that the wine-reds gleamed like rubies in the sunlight. Very luxuriant. "Love, have you a bolt of this left?" he asked, wondering if he could pass on his dressing expenses to her stewards.

"How would _I_ know?" she demanded testily. "Go ask my seamstresses." He made a note to do just that.

It was very jolly, he decided, to have seven days after the wedding aside for feasting and frolic. He and Rhaenyra could come to an amicable accord, he thought as he sampled a sugared plum, she spending the nights with her special friends, he with his. He would pass on his dressing bills to her, if she so desired he would give her heirs though he rather preferred not to. When she wasn't scowling at him, she wasn't all that bad really. They might all even go flying someday to Tyrosh, Joffrey mounted behind him, Harwin behind her, have a look around at the fabled cloth markets, laugh and eat and drink and make merry... oh it would be a dream.

And so he was plunged in pleasant dreams when Rhaenyra suddenly said, her voice stark with horror, "What has possessed the man?"

Laenor turned his head, a little annoyed to be snapped out of his reverie, and followed her eyes. His face blanched with horror when he saw Cole bearing down upon his beloved Joffrey, morningstar raised high. Metallic spikes flashed in the sunshine, it came down as swift as a whip and as heavy as a club and there was an awful, awful _thunk _that he would not forget to his dying day. He screamed.

Prince Daemon bestirred himself. "Hush now, boy," he said, his eyes hard, "you don't want anyone to hear you whimpering like a lovelorn lass."

But he did not care, he had half-risen, he had some blind idea of throwing himself out of the box, racing across the field to his sweet Joffrey's defense when Rhaenyra grabbed him around the waist and all but hauled him on to her lap. "You little fool," she hissed, twining herself around him as though she would very much like to smother him with her body.

He struggled against her but she was too strong. Her nails raked across his face like ravens' beaks, she threw her arms around his neck in a strangler's chokehold. "Kiss me," she snarled and before he could turn his head away, she bit his lip, sucking hard and drawing all the air out from his body.

"Better," he distantly heard Prince Daemon say.

"I hate you!" he gasped, twitching away from her. "Let. Me. Go!"

When she did, it was all over. They were dragging him out, a bloody carcass with a helm so dented that his brains must be like pulp beneath it. Cole watched him, blood dripping from the points of his morningstar, a wide space clearing around his spare figure. He held himself like a statue, rigid and austere and radiating hate. Rhaenyra dabbed at her lips with a lace handkerchief that her women presented to her.

"Very well, you hate me then," she told Laenor, her look full of scorn. "But I spared us both a great deal of embarrassment and you will thank me for it later."

Prince Daemon clapped him on the back. "Ah lad, there's no need to look like that," he said amiably. "Go to him. You can do it with dignity now."

"Dignity," he repeated. He could not make any sense of the word. They spoke to him of dignity when his lover, his bones turned to jelly, was being dragged off the field?

"Yes and it won't look as odd as you squawking your pretty head off - after all, he's your champion for the day isn't he?"

"He was," Laenor said quietly. And though he turned his face away, he could still hear Rhaenyra's sigh of irritation as his tears that began to fall.


	12. Black Aly Blackwood

_In the early part of the war, Lord Borros proved reluctant to face the dragons personally. But toward the end of the Dance, he and his stormlanders seized King's Landing during the Moon of the Three Kings, restoring the city to order and winning promises that his eldest daughter would become the new queen of the widowed King Aegon II. Then he boldly led the last of the royalist host against the approaching riverlanders, who were commanded by the young Lord Kermit Tully, the even-younger Benjicot Blackwood, and Blackwood's aunt Alysanne. When the Lord of Storm's End learned that the host was led by boys and women, he grew confident in his victory, but Bloody Ben Blackwood, as he was remembered after, broke his flank, while Black Aly Blackwood led the archers who brought down his knights. Lord Borros was defiant to the end, and the accounts claim he killed a dozen knights and slew Lords Darry and Mallister before he himself was slain by Kermit Tully._

**\- The World of Ice and Fire**

* * *

**131 AC, The Kingsroad**

"This is going to be a muddy mess," Kermit muttered. The young Lord of Riverrun, as pink-and-white as a maid, evinced mild distaste at the prospect.

Aly, already up to her knees in the sticky brown goo, laughed. "Us lads don't mind," she told him. "But you can sit out the fight at the back with the laundresses." And then, as incorrigible as her mother feared, she winked at the boy who was a few years younger than her. "Might be I'll give you a swive afterwards. Soldiers always have hearty appetites after a good brawl."

Kermit blushed, cut to the quick. But then little green boys were always so touchy. "I'm not afraid of a fight," he said querulously. "I just don't want to get dirty, that's all."

Aly patted his elbow and decided to give up teasing him. "There now, son," she said amiably, "you'll be on a horse. Mud won't touch you and I hope you don't mind getting blood on your pretty mail, eh?"

"Noooo," Kermit said bravely. After a thoughtful pause, "I can always have my squire scour it with sand." Knighted only weeks before, he was very proud of the fact that he was now man enough to merit his own squire when only a short while back, he had been one himself.

He really was a pretty lad, her liege lord, Aly decided idly. Scarlet hair to go with his scarlet cheeks. His eyes were not the Tully blue though, they were as green as a frog-eater's - it had come from his mother's side and her doubtful blood - but they looked well on him. Sometimes, when he thought he had a clever idea - they were really very stupid, of course, and she always told him so - his face would light up with the most luminous smile. It turned her heart to kindling, it did. Enough to slip into his tent one night and make a man of him - but not enough to wed him though he'd already asked her twice.

He was scarcely sixteen and at the age when susceptible boys thought themselves honor-bound to make honest wives out of the first women they bedded. But she could not, in all conscience, spoil the Lord of Riverrun's prospects by taking up his offer. Nor was it a future that was like to make her happy, being saddled to Kermit Tully for the rest of her days.

Her nephew, Benjicot, tugged at the sleeve of her jerkin. "Yes, Ben?" she said, snapping out of her reverie.

"I'm scared," he said baldly. He was twelve and sometimes when he was white up to the gills, he could confess such things. But only to her.

"Aw, love," she said, putting her arm around him and squeezing, "you've seen worse. You fought at the Fishfeed, didn't you?" _And sky and sea, what a bloody business that was. Two thousand dead on the field. _

Ben made a face. "You know I didn't really fight," he said, brutally honest like his father before him. "I was just there. Ser Nathanael was the one who gave the commands." Nathanael Grey was castellan in Raventree.

"You were his squire," she reminded him. She would not have him doubting himself on the eve of battle, wrestling with fear and his ever-sensitive conscience. "You held a sword and a spear, that's as much as most men do in battle. You fought."

"Yes but I was in the reserve lines-"

"Mercy Ben," she said, cuffing his head. "You don't need to kill a man to prove yourself, do you hear me?"

"I don't know how to kill a man," Ben said. "I mean I do, sort of. I've killed rabbits before. And straw dummies, of course, but-but it's not the same, is it?" He looked up at her with the trusting eyes of a twelve-year-old and inspite of herself, she cuddled him. Poor wee lad. Too young to be sent out into the battle - but then he was the Lord of Raventree and Ser Nathanael, coarse man though he was, was right. This was no time to play the pup and hide in the reserves, boy or not, the lord had to be seen by his men.

"Don't ask me, I've never killed a man outright," she told him. "Archers don't always see where their targets land. But I'd say the fact that you're nervous about killing augurs well for you. You've no bloodlust like some I've seen and that's a good thing, Ben-my-babe. A pinch of fear on the cusp of war keeps you sharp. And the fact that you never thought about turning tail and fleeing at the Fishfeed, as many grown men would, shows your mettle."

"But where would I have fled to?" Ben asked, reasonably enough. "And anyway if I did, Ser Nathanael would have set me to latrine duties till spring." He brooded over this a moment before adding in a small voice, "I'm not in the reserve lines this time. He said I was big enough and that it wasn't fitting for the Lord of Raventree to keep hidden all throughout the war. I'm-I'm in the flank this time."

"Better the flank than the center," she said comfortingly.

"Where _I _am," Kermit said gloomily. "It's alright for you to be so easy in your heart, you're with the archers in the back."

"I thought you'd welcome the chance to win yourself some glory," she said.

"Oh I am," he said too quickly for it to be completely true. "I am, I am." He fiddled with his leather gloves, lovingly embroidered with the Tully trouts by a sister. If they were wed, Aly knew that he would expect her to set aside her bow for a needle, to keep his linen in order and his cloaks pressed. Pah. "I knew Prince Luke," he said. "Father sent me to Dragonstone a few years when I was younger."

"Aye, you two were born in the same year," she agreed. Kermit might mourn for the playmate of his childhood but Aly thought that it was a good thing that all of Queen Rhaenyra's older boys were dead. _They must have been Strong's bastards, _she thought grimly. _We all had the eyes to see it even if none of us dared give it tongue. Better for the realm that they perished untimely. The bitch's younger pups, true-bred Targaryens will be a sweeter meal to swallow. _

"We were friends," he insisted. "Prince Aemond was a kinslayer," he said, his voice hard and his eyes gone the color of old moss. "But Lord Borros was just as bad. He _knew _what would come of it if he threw Luke out of Storm's End that night, with Aemond One-Eye on his scent. And Luke only ever went as an envoy! The way I see it, Old Borros is as responsible for Luke's murder as anyone. I _hate _him."

"Keep that hate burning then," she advised him. "And if you should come across Borros Baratheon in the fray, then gods help the wretch."

"Lord Borros doesn't take us seriously," Ben piped up. "I overheard Ser Nathanael talking about it to Ser Garibald, he said the Storm Crow laughed and laughed fit to kill when he heard that he was marching against an army of women and boys."

"_I'm_ not a boy," Kermit said heatedly. "On my last nameday-"

"Aye, you're not a boy then," Aly said. "You're one of the women." She gave the boys before her a grim smile and fingered her bow. It was hewn from the wood of the weirwood that stood at the heart of Raventree, no finer sample of its craft existed in the Seven Kingdoms she was willing to bet. Though her cousin, Red Robb as they called him, would dispute her on that. Most girls grew up strumming lutes in the solar under their mothers' eyes. For her it was a bow. That was why her sisters called her Black Aly, the lone black sheep in a washed-white herd of marriageable females, her mother's despair and her septa's trial. And that was how the name had spread.

"Let the Storm Crow laugh then," she said softly. "He'll be laughing out of the other side of his mouth soon."

* * *

**A/N: Black Aly eventually married Cregan Stark... so the next chapter is going to be Cregan Stark and the Hour of the Wolf. Dumdumdum!**


	13. Rhaena of Pentos

_Lord Corlys himself was spared the trial by the machinations of Baela and Rhaena Targaryen, who convinced Aegon to issue an edict restoring to him his offices and honors, then by Black Aly Blackwood when she gave Lord Stark her hand in marriage in return for the boon of allowing Aegon's edict to stand._

**\- The World of Ice and Fire**

* * *

**131 AC, King's Landing**

Baela was older, by a few breaths, but in wits, Rhaena was years ahead of her.

From the time they were imps in the nursery, people liked to remark on how Baela took after their father and their grandmother. _A heart forged in dragonfire, _they would say admiringly. _Mettlesome _and _spirited _were words often thrown about. Then they would turn to Rhaena, playing quietly with her dolls in a corner and shrug and say _oh well, this one's pretty. _They thought she couldn't understand but she did. It only became worse after Baela's egg hatched and Rhaena's died within hours, a feeble, sickly thing.

_Well at least you have your looks, _her stepmother had said to her face. Dismissive. _Someday you'll make a biddable little wife. Not for Jace, of course, not for my heir. But you might do for Luke._

They thought she would turn out the same way as her hatchling, wan and waxy and spiritless, but here she was, standing robust and upright while the rest of them were dead, while Baela simmered behind her veils and stewed in her hatred.

And she _had_ a dragon now, though Morning Light was still so small she could cup her in her palms. Her wings were pink as sunrise, her scales mother-of-pearl. It was the thought of that which gave her the courage to press forward and greet Cregan Stark, boldly as an equal.

Within she might be a tremulous girl, timid and given to twisting up her words in nervousness, but outwardly she played the part of the princess. _I am no less than Baela. __I am Daemon's daughter too. _"Well met, my lord," she said. It was not for her to curtsey to him, being a Targaryen, and so she did not.

Keenly aware of the proprieties, Cregan Stark creaked his bony knees and bowed to her. He was not so old she knew, not yet five-and-twenty, and yet the silver flecks in his hair and the hard lines around mouth and eyes made him look much older. "Lady Rhaena," he said. "How may I be of service?"

She offered him her arm and he gave her such a confuddled look that she was forced to explain. "Some words are best whispered," she said. "Some thoughts best shared between two." Then, with a touch of exasperation, "Will you walk with me, Lord Stark? The gardens are pleasant today."

That they were not, but he did accept her arm. A murder of courtiers glanced impertinently after them, in a moment they would swarm together like gnats to expound on the latest development. Did the Lady Rhaena mean to take Lord Stark for a husband? What manner of alliance did they mean to broker together? She was the king's sister and he was his Hand, did they intend to hold sway over young King Aegon during the boy's regency?

The snows were ankle deep. Her cloak swept out behind her like a peacock's tail, the blue wool sequined with green and gold and violet silk threads spiderwebbing together and embedded with black garnets. She caught Lord Stark glancing at it surreptitiously and well he should, for it was surely more magnificent than anything he had ever seen - or could ever hope to, she thought sourly, if he chose to go back north.

"My grandfather brought it for me," she told him. "Men called him the Sea Snake, as you know, for there was not one corner of the sea where he had not slithered into and made himself a lair. This is from Braavos."

_From a courtesan's bower, he swore to me, _she remembered. _She called herself the Siren and desired him to remain forever by her side as her sailor. And to tempt him, she gave him her cloak, over which a hundred seamstresses had toiled for a year and a day, for free._ Rhaena did not mention this to Lord Stark though. She would not wish to shock this staid northman unduly.

"Yes, I know why he was called the Sea Snake." He gave his head a little jerk in a close approximation of a nod. He was ill at ease with her, standing as far from as he could while still holding her arm, mouth tucked up in a thin, disapproving line as though the wiles of womenfolk were a misery to be endured. Hesitantly, "It is magnificent."

"It is one of a kind," she said sadly. "Precious few of the beautiful things he brought home from his travels, all those treasures and curiosities, survived the Battle in the Gullet. Spicetown was sacked, High Tide set to the torch." _And of all those treasures, Jace's life was the most precious, _she thought. He had died in battle and a chunk of her stepmother's sanity had been dislodged ever since.

"I am sorry." Stilted. "Lord Velaryon made his seat at High Tide, I know. He must have been much grieved."

He looked rather as though he wanted to slither out of her grip, but she would not let him. She had things to say. "I suppose our poor southron winter must be a jape to you," she said, on a lighter note.

"Winter is never a jape," he said as gravely as though she had called his mother a harlot. "Not here, not in the north." And then, forcing himself to yield a little, "But yes, my lady, your winters are milder than our autumns."

"I have read that the snows pile higher than a man's head at Winterfell, in this time."

He gave her a sad smile. "Lady Rhaena, why else did you think we marched south? You have seen my ramshackle levies, such as they are."

"Good and gallant men all," she said, for a lady never forget her courtesies. That was not something anyone had told her - who would? Her grandmother who went to bed in her boots? Her sainted, sweet stepmother? That was something she had decided for herself. If she did not have a dragon to mount, she would have to use her words and her wits. "A northman is said to be worth ten southron men."

He tried not to smile too broadly but she could see that her compliment, dredged up from the depths of memory, had pleased him. _Good. _"Dead men all," he said with awful finality. "They marched and I led them because an honorable death in combat is kinder than hunger and the wasting sickness. An old man would rather kiss his grandchildren goodbye, a boy his mother's cheek and say farewell, I'm off to war than take up his bow and go hunting in the woods in winter."

She was lost. "I do not understand."

"No, how would you, my lady?" he said grimly. "In winter, the unwanted ones - the old men, the green boys, the homeless, unwed, the unloved - all take up their bows and go hunting. But their families - if they have any left - never expect them to bring home supper. Come spring when the snows melt, we find their bones. Sometimes."

She pressed her hand to her mouth. "Cruel," she murmured.

"'Tis a cruel world, my lady." He scratched his face and then said impulsively, "A war is a rare stroke of good luck in winter, begging your ladyship's pardon. I know what a toll this one took on your family and for that you have my sympathies." He gave her a quaint little bow.

"Your men can stay back," she said. "Those who have no homes left to them in the north, those who would not mind southron brides and southron customs. I swear to you that I will find land and shelter for them all." _There are so many widows in the Riverlands, _she thought sadly. _So many fields left barren and unploughed, so many children fatherless. They will welcome the lusty northmen. _

"That is kind of you, my lady," he said. He looked as though his neat and proper idea of the world had been turned upside down with her words, as though kindness was not to be expected in a Targaryen, thoughtfulness in a southroner. "I am sure there are many who would be glad to hear of your pledge." Awkwardly, he stumbled into an empty courtesy of his own. "How is your sister, the Lady Baela?"

_Mad. _"Well," she lied. _Putrefying. _

"We never see her."

"Her burns have not healed, you know," she explained. "And she will never have the use of her legs again. She prefers to remain sedately in her quarters, to rest and recuperate at her own pace." And as she speaks, the cloying sweetness of milk-of-the-poppy clogs her nostrils. Grey pus on unwashed linen, septas in white slipping through the gloom like ghosts, silver burns shimmering like scales over her sister's skin... like a mermaid in children's story, beached and broken, a creature without a soul, without a future...

_Mercy, Rhaena. Give me the gift. _But it is the only gift that it is not in her power to give.

She turned, smiling, to Lord Stark. "My sister is young and strong, she will soon be herself again," she lied blithely. "It is our grandfather, the Lord of Driftmark, whose condition gives us cause for concern."

Here his brows knit together in warning but she plunged on. "He is an old man, he has seen almost four-score years. Whatever his crimes, purported or otherwise, it is cruel, it is inhuman to hold him to account for them now. Spare him, I beg you, let him return to the hearth-fires at Driftmark and mourn the family that was taken from him."

"If not a kingslayer himself, the man stands surely accused of aiding and abetting regicide."

_No doubt. _"I do not deny your judgment, my lord, which I believe must be fair and just for so you are yourself," she said meekly. "I only ask for mercy on his behalf."

He looked at her incredulously. "You must forgive me, my lady," he said flatly. "I do not understand you. In the north, when a man is judged, he is sentenced. And when he is sentenced, he is punished. That is all."

She tried again. "The False King murdered his wife. My father often said of my grandfather and grandmother that though they might inhabit two separate bodies, they shared one soul. Surely that is cause enough to excuse his actions?"

"Princess Rhaenys died in a fair fight," Lord Stark said pedantically. "She chose to seek out King Aegon, that Sunfyre prevailed over Meleys cannot be counted as murder. And," he said, softening, "I have buried a wife too, though Arra died in childbed, not in battle. I know the pain."

He looked like a man who had never laughed, much less loved. How could he know? "Jace - Prince Jacaerys, I mean, flew north to seek your aid before the war had broken," she said, her mouth dry. She had dreaded that it might come to this. "The Pact of Ice and Fire. He swore to you that a Targaryen princess would wed into the House of Stark if you would but support his lady mother's claim. I was betrothed to Prince Lucerys but Aemond One-Eye killed him and being a woman grown, I free to wed. I-I am a Targaryen princess, Daemon's daughter, Jaehaerys' great-granddaughter. My lord, I would be honored if you would accept me as your wife, thus sealing the former pact between our two houses."

There she had said her piece. Now she lowered her eyes as a maiden should, feeling equal parts terror and misery.

"By stone and sea and sky!" he swore, clearly in anguish. "My lady, please, I beg you, I would never- I would never force you!" At the sight of the tears that welled unbidden in her eyes, he looked ready to melt himself. "Please, my lady, I never meant to distress you."

She sniffed theatrically a moment and then subsided. He had just handed her the winning card. "It is just so hard for me!" she wailed, pressing her hands to her face as though to hide her tears from him. It was all she could do to stop herself from giggling. "I am onlya young girl and I have no one to help me, no one to guide me in these troubling times."

"Yes, these troubling times," Lord Stark parroted feebly. He very clearly did not know what to do with women and now that there was one weeping at his feet, a royal princess no less, he looked as though he'd just been routed in battle.

"My sweet sister is dying - yes, _dying_, the maesters cannot tell me if she will live out the next year or whether she will succumb. Oh it is too tragic! My brother is a child, naive and gullible in the ways of the world and much given to his grief. And my grandfather is to die!" At this she let out a fresh howl.

"Not die-"

"Yes _die_," she sniffed. "Hanging. Drawing. Quartering. Disembowelment. Public execution. The full punishment for traitors."

"For lowborn traitors of mean stature, my lady-"

"Beheading then," she said. "It is kinder but it makes no difference. Dead is dead." She turned shining eyes to him, as though she was a bewildered little girl and he the fount of all wisdom and goodness in the world. "But _you_ can save him. And you won't."

"There are rules," he began stiffly.

"And do those rules not take into account the years of good service he gave to the realm?" she demanded. "Shedding blood, spending gold - no man was ever so true and fierce in his service. My lord, where would _you _be if the Usurper Aegon had prevailed? A traitor, despite your honorable intentions, the justifications you thought you had and the gilding you add to your actions."

"If Aegon Targaryen had prevailed, I would have gone to my death like a man," he said coldly. "I would not have hidden behind women's skirts." That stung. Her grandfather had never asked for her help, if need be he would have mounted the gallows bravely and without a murmur, laid his neck on the headsman's block. _She_ was behind all of this, without his approval or knowledge, and that was because she loved him, because she was a woman grown and knew her power.

"My brother Aegon is like another grandson to my grandfather," Rhaena said. "Particularly since all the others, my uncle Laenor's sons, are dead. The Usurper would have lopped his ear off - and no doubt, his head - as a warning to the boy's supporters after Lord Baratheon was routed by the Riverlanders on the Kingsroad. My grandfather would never have stood for it.

"Yes, but poison-" Lord Stark began, shifting uneasily as though to speak of the crime made him an abettor.

"He was an old man!" she said fiercely. She took a breath to calm herself and without giving him space to push in with his complaints added, "My lord, men say that poison is a weapon only for women and cravens and the Dornish. My grandfather was none of those but do you believe he would ever have stood a chance against the Aegon the Usurper in a fair fight? Not at his age. All he did he did for the good of the realm and yes, for one sweet boy who's life meant more to him than his own."

"I-I did not know that." Lord Stark looked shocked and somewhat dismayed, as though he felt he ought to have been told this before. "The king never spoke of this to me."

She smiled wanly. "When does Aegon speak at all these days? I remember him as a babe in the nursery, a jollier, plumper urchin there never was." _I held him to my heart and pretended that he was my own, for his mother never had time for the babes in the nursery. Only when they were old enough to mount a dragon, to hold a sword and sing her praises did they begin to interest her._ "Aegon the Usurper killed his mother in front of him. He had him chained and fettered in the dungeons of Dragonstone for months. He poisoned my little brother's soul and tainted it with fear."

Lord Stark looked away, as though the rawness in her face and words was too much for him. This was a man comfortable with hacking skulls and bludgeoning bones but take away his mail and put him next to a silver-tongued rogue like her and he would lay down his weapons with only a few squawks. _Lucky for me. _

"Lord Corlys is a great man," Lord Stark finally said. "I grew up on tales of his prowess and feats of daring myself. I-I admired him," he said in a shamefaced, choking voice.

"And you still should," she said firmly. "He is the greatest man left alive and the man who orders his execution will never live down the infamy. No matter that he believes his cause to be just, his judgment righteous he will forever be pointed at as the man who hid behind a paper shield and slew the Sea Snake."

"Did you consult with your sister in this?" he asked abruptly.

"Baela? Oh yes," she lied cheerfully and without even feeling a qualm of misgiving. These days Baela could look no further beyond her next draught of poppy-laced strongwine. But she could better handle the machinations of the court if the world thought the sisters stood united. "We share everything together."

Lord Stark laced his fingers together and brooded. After a moment, "Tomorrow I will conduct trials in open court. In acknowledgement of your grandfather's years of loyal service and his advanced age, he will be spared the humiliation of a public trial. But since he _does _stand accused of regicide-"

"-a private trial may be conducted at a later stage," she said swiftly. "Which the King's grace will preside over."

"Yes."

She smiled genuinely up at him. "Thank you. No doubt you will wish to have my grandfather removed to a tower cell with its attendant comforts now." The poor old man was languishing in the black cells with the other twenty-two accused of kingslaying. _He can have the chamber next to Baela's, _she decided, already arranging it in her mind.

He smiled sourly. "No doubt. My lady, I believe that you have played me."

_Like a fiddle. _"Now, my lord, how can you say that?" she asked sweetly. "A young girl like me? I would never aspire to disrupt your weighty judgments." With trembling hands she smoothed her gown, relieved that it was all over and that she had won. There was more left to be done, to be sure, but she had won for the moment. _That he is pardoned of treason is not enough, _she decided. _He must be restored to his former glory. _

"There will be a ball tonight, my lord. Will you attend?" He was about to say no when she added quickly, "It would look so odd if you did not, being the King's Hand."

"If I must," he sighed, looking deeply betrayed. "My lady, this office affords me no joy. If this poor squab must don peacock's feathers to fit in, so be it."

"There will be many beautiful ladies in attendance," she told him. "Matrons who have lost husbands, maidens who have lost betrotheds in the war. The fairest and the highest-born in all the Seven Kingdoms. Some of them even worship the old gods." She gave him a side-glance and when he did not repudiate her she murmured, "And I hear that you are looking for a wife, my lord."

"I am," he said mildly.

A mischievous sprite prompted her to ask, "What of your late wife, the Lady Arra? Will it not grieve you to set aside her memory and take home a new bride?"

He was more practical than she had given him credit for. He did not shrug but his tone was dismissive as he said, "Dear as she was to me, my lady wife gave me only one son. Rickon was a sturdy little lad when I left him but he is not yet three years of age. Babes die in winter, too many of them, and a prudent man would do well to secure his lineage."

"I understand," she said dryly.

He gave her a polite smile. "I'm sure you don't."


	14. Alys Rivers - The Seer

_"She saw you in a storm cloud, in a mountain pool at dusk, in the fire we lit to cook our suppers. She sees much and more, my Alys."_

**\- Aemond Targaryen  
**

* * *

**130 AC, King's Landing  
**

He watched her the way a dragon might a vixen at the forest's edge. Too small to make a satisfactory meal of, but pretty enough to play with. For a little while at least.

Prince Aemond cupped her face between his palms and ran a finger down her cheek. "I bartered an eye for a dragon," he told her. In the great stone fireplace, the flames were dancing. The light crystallized over the sapphire in his hollow socket, making it burn almost white. "A fair trade. What would you give for an eye, little Rivers?"

The court had sat down to their supper. Prince Aemond sat at the head of the table. He was Regent during his brother's indisposition and if he wished to seat his low-born paramour by his side, who would dare gainsay him? A table knife lay by his plate, an ornate silver affair with a rock crystal embedded into the handle. Sharp enough to take out an eye.

It was hard not to swallow, not to draw her shawl more tightly around herself and shape her fingers into a seven-pointed star. _He'll smell the fear off you, _Alys thought. When she had been a little girl, her lord father would take her on hunting trips, along with his trueborn sons. _They can smell the fear off you, _he'd told her when they were on the trail of boar and bear and the great-antlered elk who was the fiercest of all. _Never let an animal smell your fear, my Alys, or it'll be the end of you. _

"Half your life," she said steadily. "You need my eyes, to see the things that you cannot see for yourself. If you take one eye, you take away half the span of yours. And if you take both, you will die."

He laughed shortly and released her. "Clever girl," he said. "Clever, lying girl." The prince turned to his mother. "Helaena?" he asked briefly.

Alicent Hightower grimaced. "Abed," she responded, with equal terseness. "As always."

"She needs a new babe in the cradle to cheer her up," Prince Aemond said mockingly. "Past time she forgot Jaehaerys."

_A mother never forgets, _Alys thought and she saw it mirrored on the Queen Dowager's face, flashing through her eyes for a moment like silver trout through a stream. And then it was gone, hardening into a careful indifference - she did not dare show any weakness before her son, not before Aemond One-Eye.

"And who will give her this new babe?" Queen Alicent asked coolly. "Do you propose yourself?"

"Aegon's not up to the deed," Aemond grinned. His brother, the king, had lain abed in putrid agony ever since his battle with Princess Rhaenys. He slept nine hours out of every ten and the tenth whimpered and begged most pitifully for more milk of the poppy to ease his pain. "It'll have to be me to console our sweet sister." He caught up Alys' hand and kissed it, teeth scraping against her knuckles, one mad eye sparkling in a way that told her that he would visit her chamber that night. "I'm quick to get a sow in farrow. Alys' belly can swear to that."

Queen Alicent eyed her with faint distaste. "I will pray for your health, Alys Rivers," she said. "And for the health of your bastard." Her look said, _both of you will need it. _

_How did it come to this? _she wondered again, watching the man by her side spear a bloody chunk of boar's meat. He savaged it with tongue and teeth like a beast of prey and carelessly wiped away a trail of blood that had begun to drip from the side of his mouth. He was not king but he wore a crown, the Conqueror's crown of iron and rubies. More warlike than his brother, he declared that it looked better on him.

Her life had changed in a heartbeat. One moment she had been a silent spectator in her father's train as he came to King's Landing to swear fealty to the King, the next Aemond had plucked her out for her pretty face. It had only become worse when he'd been told that she was a witch's daughter, that she had witch's powers too. She could not say no to a prince, she had shown him all her mother had taught her and more, the gifts that were her own... and he had decided to keep her because it amused him. Her lord father had mewled kittenishly for her release but her brothers had put an end to that - better a bastard girl than their own heads.

While Aemond jested with a courtier, she watched the flames. "Seeking a vision?" Queen Alicent asked her mockingly.

"Aye," she said, lapsing into country speech. She was not of the court, not tutored in their ways and it showed. She was always a target for raillery and often Aemond himself led the cruel jests at her expense. "He is good to me when I see things for him."

"He should be good to you for the sake of the child you carry."

Alys smiled sadly. "He should be good to you for that you are his mother, my lady. And yet he is not."

"I was lucky that Aegon was my firstborn," Alicent murmured, low enough under the cacophony of the feasting court that only Alys could hear her. "Indolent and self-indulgent as Aegon is, he is still the better choice. The nobles would never have stood for Aemond as king."

A squire came into the hall and approached the dais, his face as chalky-pale as his tunic. He looked like he was going to be sick. It took courage to face the Prince Regent, especially if there was bad news. In a war, there was never any shortage of bad news.

"Your Grace," the poor little chap said. He knelt before the prince, as though hoping to make himself too small and insignificant for the wrath that he knew must fall on his head. _His lord should have been here to bear the news instead of sending this child, _Alys thought, with an irrational flash of anger. _They all know Aemond's temper, but they're craven beneath the brave banners and shining armor. __Of what use is a knight if he cannot protect the weak? _

"There is news from the riverlands," the boy quavered. "I was sent by my Lord Crakehall." He offered a scroll to Aemond which the prince tossed negligently to his mother.

"Read it for me," he said briefly. A thin line appeared between Alicent's fine white brow as she read it silently for herself. "Well?" her son asked impatiently.

"Lord Crakehall writes to us that great losses have been sustained at a battle by the God's Eye," she said at last, her voice neutral and carefully controlled. "Over two thousand died."

"Well its a war," he said shortly. "And?"

"Lord Jason Lannister, their commander, was killed. Lord Lefford who succeeded him as well. Lord Swyft. Lord Reyne." The great lords' names fell like blows. "Your Grace, we have lost the battle."

For a moment the hall was utterly still, so still that Alys could almost feel her heart pounding in her chest. Aemond's fingers strained white against his goblet, if it were not solid gold it might have shattered in his grip. The squire drew ragged breaths, curling at the prince's feet like a terrified hound-pup. Queen Alicent's hands twitched against the plum-colored silk of her gown.

And then the silence shattered. With a roar that reminded her more of an animal than a man, Aemond grabbed the squire. "By the gods' pestilence," he swore. By the sharp stench that arose, Alys guessed that the boy had pissed his breeches. His hands were taut against the squire's throat, as though he meant to crush the life out of him. No one stirred, some like Queen Alicent averted their eyes as though the scene before them was somehow indecorous, others like Lord Rosby watched avidly as though at a bear-baiting.

_This is not real to them, _she thought. _Not the boy, not his death. They are only glad that Aemond's anger did not turn to them._

When she was a little girl, she had wanted to be a knight. Her trueborn brothers let her play with them, sticks in place of swords, but when she had told Lyaren when she was five that she wanted to be a knight like he was going to be he'd shoved her into the mud and told her she was stupid. _Girls can't be knights, _he told her. _Not even bastards like you. You can't be a knight and you're not a lady. You'll just have to be a witch like your mamma. _

She would never be a knight, she would always be the prince's witch but she could be brave. She threw herself between Aemond and the squire, prising at his hands as best as she could. "Your Grace, my lord, my love," she cried. She caught one of his hands and pressed it against the mound straining against her gown. "For the love of our son-" She did not know if it was a boy or a girl she carried, no witch could tell you that, no matter how skilled. But it always pleased men to think that their women carried sons, for sons were proof of vitality. He slapped her away but he did loosen his hold on the boy.

She grabbed the silver knife lying by the side of his plate before he could think to pick it up himself and pressed it as hard as she could against the soft flesh of her own wrist. Blood trickled out, staining her white sleeve and his eyes followed it avidly as she knew they would. Aemond loved the sight of blood only a little less than he loved his dragon. "Please," she begged him again.

"You'll rue this, wench," he told her briefly.

_I already am_, she thought. She put the knife down. The boy was cowering behind her, she noticed, clinging to the hem of her gown like a babe at his nurse's skirt.

"Summon my council," the prince told his mother briefly. He snatched up a goblet of wine, drank it in one gulp and threw it against the wall in his fury. The queen's eyes flickered briefly and then she lowered them.

"It shall be done, Your Grace," she said. "Where will you be?"

"Out riding," he said. "I need night air to cool my blood."

Alys knelt as he passed, her long black hair covering her face and her shaking shoulders. He would ride his dragon, summon his war council... and come morning when the kingdom's business was done, he would attend to her.

Queen Alicent rose. "That was foolish," she murmured as she passed Alys, flicking her skirts away from her disdainfully. "You've ruined your gown."


	15. Laena Targaryen - The Beloved

_Whilst Princess Rhaenyra misliked her stepmother Queen Alicent, she became fond and more than fond of her goodsister Lady Laena. With Driftmark and Dragonstone so close, Daemon and Laena oft visited with the princess, and her with them. Many a time they flew together on their dragons, and the princess's she-dragon Syrax produced several clutches of eggs. In 118 AC, with the blessing of King Viserys, Rhaenyra announced the betrothal of her two eldest sons to the daughters of Prince Daemon and Lady Laena. Jacaerys was four and Lucerys three, the girls two. And in 119 AC, when Laena found she was with child again, Rhaenyra flew to Driftmark to attend her during the birth._

**\- The Rogue Prince**

* * *

**120 AC, Driftmark**

"I've never had a friend before." There, she had dared say it aloud.

Laena smiled up at her. "You must have."

"No," Rhaenyra told her. "I grew up with the ladies-in-waiting that were foisted on me, but I always knew them to be glorified servants. They could never be my equals. My brothers, Alicent's sons, are a pestilence and her daughter was born too late to mean anything to me. And I have had many men for lovers, but none for friends." Light scintillated off the princess's diamond eardrops, a brilliant, sparkling smile in contrast to the frown she wore on her face.

"Ser Criston?" Laena asked softly.

"If there was ever anything pure between us, it has long been corrupted," she said. "He saw me for something that I was not and would never be. I tried to stake a claim on him."

"I'm sorry," Laena said simply. "I had Laenor at least when I was growing up."

"I wish-" Rhaenyra sighed. "I wish we could be as we were when I was still a little girl and he was my shining knight. But I am too proud and he is too bitter. And even if there ever was any chance of reconciliation between us, Alicent saw to its unnatural end spewing poison in his ears."

"Hellish woman," Laena agreed.

"You are my cousin and my only friend," Rhaenyra insisted, holding Laena's hand and pressing it to her heart. The princess had always been much given to theatrical gestures, to sweeping declarations of love and anguished declamations of loathing. "We are women of the same blood and the same rank. We know what it is like to love the same man." Even Rhaenyra's heart was armored, Laena thought in amusement, the bodice of her gown made of steel like a breastplate.

"Is that all?" Laena teased. Over the swell of her monstrously engorged belly, she raised her arms and put her palms on Rhaenyra's cheeks. Where Laena's face was sharp and narrow, Rhaenyra's was soft and rounded. Laena had often thought that the gods had put Rhaenyra's intended soul in her body and Laena's in Rhaenyra's body. Rhaenyra looked like a young matron, merry of heart and mild of temper, round and sweet as a plum. Laena looked like a royal mistress, beautiful and imperious and given to thunderous rages and childish demands. Really, it would have been much better the other way around.

The princess hesitated a moment and then she kissed Laena's hands. "My cousin," she said, kissing Laena's fingers one by one. "My friend," she said, planting a kiss on Laena's stomach. "My lover." Higher, on her cow's-udder breasts. And on her lips, "My soul. You mustn't leave me. You _can't _leave me." She gave Laena a woeful look. "I am a better woman for your presence, more temperate, more patient, kinder even."

"I will never leave you," Laena promised her. She patted her stomach. "My mother bore me on the deck of a heaving ship, in the middle of a winter storm. I ride Visenya's dragon. Do you think me so weak that childbirth will kill me?"

"My mother was not weak," Rhaenyra insisted. "And it killed her."

"Queen Aemma was old and weary, gods bless her," Laena said. "I am young and strong."

"But too thin," Rhaenyra said critically. "The maesters tell me so."

"You can fatten me up like a sow for slaughter," Laena laughed. "Feed me sugared plums from your own fingers and kiss me if I'm good. And when I'm ready to burst from all the feeding and all the loving, I'll pop out a heir for Daemon and we shall name him in your honor."

"You should have named one of the twins after me," Rhaenyra said critically, always ready to remember a perceived slight.

"I hardly thought to name one of my daughters after my husband's old lover," Laena said tartly. "I named one for my mother and Daemon named one for his father and we thought it very well done." She smiled, remembering how nervous she had been before she had met Rhaenyra for the first time after her marriage. They had known each other for years of course, when they were girls, but had never been especially close. But it had all changed once they had met as grown women. "I thought you would hate me. And I was told that your rages were fearsome to behold!"

"I thought I'd hate you too," Rhaenyra said candidly. "But how could I when I saw you? You were so beautiful. You have the gift of savoring life, it is not given to all of us. No matter how much I have, no matter how much Daemon has, it will never be enough for either of us."

"And that is why the pair of you adore me so." It was true, what Rhaenyra said of her. Laena knew herself to be uncomplicated. She liked to fly. She liked to ride. She liked to dance. She liked to be happy. That was something her lovers would never understand - that happiness was a choice.

Her husband and father came to visit her at noon. "How's my pearl?" the Sea Snake asked her fondly. He tucked the blankets up to her chin and fluffed the pillows behind her back, as solicitous as any nursemaid. It was hard for him to be in the same room as Rhaenyra even - he blamed her for his son's perceived inadequacies and "moral corruption". It was useless to remind him that Laenor's moral corruption, if so it could be called, had begun long before his wedding to Rhaenyra.

_She never gave my poor, sweet lad a chance. She's put a cuckhold's horns on his head and made a mockery of him in court, _he often raged in the privacy of his chambers.

_Laenor never gave Rhaenyra a chance either, _Laena thought but never said.

"Resting like the maesters recommended," Laena told her father. "I'll be as fat as a beached whale by the time my confinement ends."

"Ah well, there are worse things than being fat." The Sea Snake cast Rhaenyra a sour look and she returned it defiantly. "Prurient, unrestricted lusts, for one." He took his leave soon after, promising to visit her when she was alone.

"How's my sweet girl?" Daemon asked, taking one of her hands. Rhaenyra took the other. It was the time of day she liked best, the soft lavender dusk before the servants came in to light the lamps, when the three of them shared the bed together. She yearned for those long lazy days when they would take to the skies together, with no destination in mind and only the joy of the journey to sustain them. Sometimes they would camp in smoky hills, too high and steep for even mountain goats to reach but which were no hardship on dragonback. Sometimes they would find secret grottoes in emerald waters and lie naked on sun-warmed rocks. She missed those days but they would soon be back.

And after she had given Daemon the son she knew he longed for, she would sit down and speak to Laenor and Rhaenyra. Though the act might be noxious to Laenor and distasteful to Rhaenyra, it had to be done. They had to give the realm a silver-haired child so that tongues might cease to wag, so that her father could find happiness in a grandchild.

"Happy," she murmured, "so happy." Over her head, Daemon and Rhaenyra shared an indulgent look.

* * *

**A/N: I know I've written about Laena before, in Ch 3 when she's still a Velaryon but I wanted to explore the relationship between her and Rhaenyra and Daemon.**


End file.
